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RECOLLECTIONS
OF AN IRISH JUDGE

RECOLLECTIONS
OF AN IRISH JUDGE,

PRESS, BAR AND PARLIAMENT

M.1 Mi). BODKIN, K.C.

WITH 25 ILLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING A PORTRAIT
OF THE AUTHOR IN PHOTOGRAVURE

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1915

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. OLD TIMES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND i

II. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 13

III. THE REPORTERS' ROOM 26

IV. WORK AND PLAY 35

V. LONGBOW AND BULL 45

VI. DICK ADAMS 51

VII. FATHER JAMES HEALY 62

VIII. FATHER TOM BURKE 71

IX. CALLED TO THE BAR . ,• > « " . . 83

X. ECHOES OF THE FOUR COURTS v . . .94

XI. BAR AND BENCH . . ... . .108

XII. LAW AND LEVITY « . . . . . .122

XIII. LAUGHTER IN COURT . . . . ..131

XIV. PRACTICE AT THE BAR . . ... .140

XV. A NEW DEPARTURE . . . . ,; . .147

XVI. THE HUMOURS OF COERCION . . ... . . 152

XVII. THE PARNELL SPLIT . • . . . . . 168

XVIII. PARLIAMENT . . . . . . . . 179

XIX. EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH M.P. . * . .189

XX. HUMOURS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ... 198

XXI. THE RULES OF THE GAME . . . .' .208

XXII. THE TERRORS OF THE HOUSE .... 216

XXIII. FRONT BENCHERS 224

XXIV. PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY 233

XXV. THE EDITORIAL "WE" 245

vi RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

CHAPTER PAGE

XXVI. Two MEN WORTH KNOWING 252

XXVII. DUNLOP OF THE PNEUMATIC TYRE . . . 258

XXVIII. JUSTIN MCCARTHY 268

XXIX. RANDOM REVIEWS 276

XXX. BOHEMIA 281

XXXI. HAMLETS I HAVE MET 286

XXXII. MORE ABOUT ACTORS 291

XXXIII. STILL ON THE STAGE 300

XXXIV. ROME AND AMERICA 309

XXXV. THE WORLD'S PRESS PARLIAMENT . . . .317

XXXVI. RIVAL ATTRACTIONS 323

XXXVII. A DELIGHTFUL VISIT 331

XXXVIII. ROOSEVELT AT HOME 336

XXXIX. APPOINTED A JUDGE 342

XL. ON THE BENCH . . 351

INDEX . . . . , 361

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

M. M'D. BODKIN, K.C. .... Photogravure Frontispiece

THOMAS BODKIN, F.R. C.S.I 4

" The Poor Man's Doctor."

" BIG JOE MCDONNELL" 8

Of Doo Castle, one time M.P. for Mayo.

THE REV. WILLIAM DELANY, S.J., EX-PROVINCIAL .... 20

REV. FATHER JAMES HEALY 62

Parish priest of Little Bray.

REV. FATHER TOM BURKE, O.P. . 70

FRANK MCDONOUGH, Q.C 90

THE PARNELL TRIAL, DUBLIN 94

SERGEANT ARMSTRONG 100

" The Big Sergeant."

BARON DOWSE . . . 116

LORD MORRIS . . . . . . . . . . . 122

One time Chief Justice of Common Pleas, Ireland.

MR. JUSTICE JAMES MURPHY 126

THE LATE COUNTY COURT JUDGE WEBB . . . • . v . . . 134

SIR EDWARD SULLIVAN . . . . . . . .- . 138

Late Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

A NEW METHOD OF GOVERNMENT .148

OUR PRIVATE SECRETARY . . 150

AT IT AGAIN 162

MINISTER AND MIDWIFE .164

CHARLES STEWART PARNELL 168

viii RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

FACING PAGB

THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE 190

MICHAEL DAVITT 238

JUSTIN MCCARTHY 268

LORD O'BRIEN OF KILFENORA 342

Lately retired Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

COURT HOUSE, ENNIS, Co. CLARE 352

THE QUILTY HEROES 356

RECOLLECTIONS OF
AN IRISH JUDGE :

CHAPTER I
OLD TIMES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND

An apology — The origin of the Twelve Tribes — " The poor man's doctor "
— Sir Dominick Corrigan — Convivial Connaught — The padded table —
Tom Bodkin of Kilclooney — Hunting the wren — " Big Joe McDonnell "
of Doo Castle — " Ready money for the lemons " — A twenty-one
tumblers man — "Sabbatarians" — A fox hunt by moonlight — The
culprit on the bench.

I WANT to begin with an explanation and an apology
instead of a preface, and though I now put the few
words I have to say on that head at the beginning of the
first chapter where they have the best chance of being
read, I wrote them when the book was finished that they
might indicate not merely what I meant to do, but as
far as I could judge what I had done.

This book must not be taken as anything in the nature
of an autobiography; it has no such presumptuous pre-
tension. Its purpose is only to describe the interesting
men whom I have met, events I have witnessed, and
stories I have heard during a long and varied career at the
Press, Bar and Parliament.

Like the fly on the wheel, if I did not help much in the
revolution, I had a chance of seeing how it went round.
I have been mixed up in many exciting events, I have
met many remarkable men. Gladstone and other leaders
of the Liberal parties were familiar to me during my time
in Parliament.

2 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

With Parnell I had at least one very remarkable inter-
view. Justin McCarthy, William O'Brien, John Dillon,
T. P. O'Connor and other Irish leaders I can count as
personal friends. I had an interview with Leo XIII at
the Vatican, and with Roosevelt at the White House. I
think I may fairly claim a unique experience of the
Stage. All the great actors of the present generation I
have seen on the boards and gossiped with behind the
scenes. Of the Irish Judges and leaders of the Irish Bar
I have many stories to tell from hearsay or from personal
knowledge. Some slight description of the manner of life
on the Irish Press and at the Irish Bar may not be wholly
without interest, and possibly a few new characters worth
knowing may be introduced to the reader.

Though I have tried hard to keep myself and my
belongings out of the book, it was inevitable that the
first personal pronoun should occasionally obtrude itself,
especially in earlier years when " I " was the centre of
the world and the surrounding circle very small.

For the rest, it is gossip rather than history I have
written, giving the go-by for the most part to serious
events and retailing the humorous stories or amusing
incidents that have come my way.

My father was a Bodkin of Gal way. We have it on the
high authority of Lever that

The Bodkins sneeze at the grim Chinese,
They come from the Phoenicians.

Moreover, they boast themselves one of the famous
Twelve Tribes of Ye Ancient Citie of Galway. Many and
various are the accounts of the origin of the Tribes. I
only remember one which the great preacher and famous
humorist, Father Tom Burke, O.P., of whom I shall have
more to say later on, used to tell with infinite relish.
It was a version, I may add, not popular with members of
the Tribes.

In the good old times a Spanish ship was wrecked off
the coast of Galway. The crew were rescued and brought
before the King of Connaught, who was a mighty monarch
in those days. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed

OLD TIMES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND 3

in the least like the King of Connaught. There was, how-
ever, one serious defect in his gorgeous get-up. Like Achilles,
he was vulnerable in the heel. In plain English, the re-
splendent sovereign went barefoot. It is not surprising,
therefore, that he cast covetous eyes at the stout leather
brogues in which the feet of the Spanish prisoners were
encased. Pair after pair he tried them on himself vainly,
as the wicked sisters tried on the slipper of Cinderella. The
feet of the monarch were of royal proportions, and the
kingly toes could not be squeezed into any one of the
brogues.

Thereupon he returned the prisoners to the King of
Spain with handsome presents for his brother sovereign,
and a request, couched in the choicest language of diplomacy,
that his Majesty of Spain should send in return twelve pairs
of the biggest brogues in his kingdom. Either the Connaught
King's handwriting was illegible or an initial letter got
obliterated by the salt water. This much, at least, is certain :
when the document came to the eyes of the King of Spain
it read " twelve pairs of the biggest rogues in Spain."
Very willingly the King complied with the strange request,
the rogues were collected by proclamation and the
cargo dispatched. Thus were founded the Twelve Tribes
of Galway. But it is not always safe to tell this story in
mixed company in Connaught.

I come of a medical family. My father was a doctor, my
elder and only brother was a doctor, my three brothers-in-
law were doctors and my eldest nephew belonged to the
same profession.

My father's name and fame are still remembered through
the length and breadth of the western province, where he
was affectionately known as " the poor man's doctor " by
reason of his special kindness to the poor. From his resi-
dence in Tuam his practice extended to the remotest corner
of Galway and Mayo, even to the outlying islands of Arran,
Clare and Achill. In the days before railways he frequently
drove sixty miles on a relay of outside cars to visit a patient.

As a boy I had often accompanied him on many of his
calls, and so learnt to know and love western peasants,

4 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

who in instinct and manner are the finest gentlemen in the
world.

It is perhaps not unnatural that I should overestimate
my father's reputation, but I am fortified by the opinion
of his class-fellow and lifelong friend, Sir Dominick Corri-
gan, who once said to me, " If your father had settled in
Dublin he would have beaten us all."

As no sort of sequence is attempted in these roundabout
recollections, as well here as elsewhere may be said a few
words about the most famous physician of his generation.
Sir Dominick Corrigan, as I remember him in the very
height of his fame, was the least affected or pretentious of
men. The mysticism of the medical man had no attraction
for him. He did not believe in humouring the hypochon-
driac, however rich or important.

On one occasion he was visited by a very wealthy old
gentleman, who regarded his own ailments, real or
imaginary, the one thing of supreme importance in the
universe.

The patient began a history of his health, dating from
his earliest childhood. Sir Dominick listened blandly for
a moment, then lapsed into a brown study. Before the
narrative had carried the patient through a boyish attack
of the measles the great doctor stood up, shook hands,
wished him a cordial good morning, pocketed his fee and
rang the bell for the next of the expectant crowd that
all day and every day thronged his parlours.

As the utterly bewildered patient was being bowed
politely to the door he found courage to stammer out :

" Is there anything I should take, Doctor ? "

" Yes, yes," said the famous doctor, " take a little seakale
occasionally with your dinner."

" Is there nothing else ? " gasped the dumbfounded
patient.

" You may have a little melted butter over it," said the
doctor.

My father used to tell a story of his old friend that ran
somewhat on the same lines. A very able, but simple-
minded bishop, the late Dr. Duggan, by his advice visited

THOMAS BODKIN, F.R. C.S.I.

" The Poor Man's Doctor."

p. 4

OLD TIMES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND 5

Sir Dominick while in Dublin and returned enraptured
with the skill of the great physician.

" You country doctors/' said his lordship, " are well
enough in your way, but in diagnosis and treatment you are
not in it with the great Dublin consultants who trust to diet,
not physic. What do you think Corrigan ordered me to
take at my breakfast ? "

" I am sure I cannot say."
' Toast."

" Well, there was nothing very recondite about that."

" Perhaps not, but was I to have it buttered or un-
buttered ? "

" Unbuttered."
' Wrong."

" Buttered then, I suppose."

" On one side or on both ? "

" On both."

" Wrong again. He specially insisted that it should be
buttered only on one side. It is an apparently unimportant
detail like that that the nice discrimination of the really
great physician is displayed."

On another occasion my father brought Corrigan down
specially to see a wealthy patient of his in the County of
Galway. Sir Dominick was much more confident than my
father of the patient's recovery. Still, with the doctor's
proverbial caution he declined to commit himself. " In a
week's time," he said, " I expect he will be completely out
of danger." Within a week's time the patient was dead.
When Sir Dominick met my father some time after he
inquired :

" Well, Bodkin, how is our patient ? "

" Dead."

' You don't tell me so. I suppose his people regard me
as an absolute fraud ? "

" On the contrary, they consider you a prophet ; a medical
magician."

" In the name of wonder, why ? "

" Do you remember what you told them ? "

" That the patient would recover."

6 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" No, you said in a week's time he would be out of danger."

" Well ? "

" He died the last hour of the last day of the week. They
are convinced if he had lived another hour he would have
been safe."

One other story may be slipped in here characteristic of
the genial Corrigan's good-humour. He had for a patient
a prominent solicitor named Meldon, a contemporary of his
own, and like himself a martyr to well-earned gout. Corrigan
advised him to abstain from champagne : he took the advice,
and his gout almost entirely disappeared. It chanced,
however, some months later, that he was dining at a big
public banquet side by side with his physician. The cham-
pagne was of an attractive brand, but Meldon reluctantly
covered his glass with his hand as the bottle came round.
To his amazement Corrigan's glass was regularly filled and
drained. Flesh and blood could stand it no longer.

" Corrigan," he began, " didn't you tell me champagne
was bad for gout ? "

" So it is. How is your gout since you gave it up ? "

" Almost gone. But "

" Well ? "

" You are as great a victim to the gout as ever I was."

" Greater, my dear fellow, greater."

" Then why in the devil's name do you drink champagne?"

"I will answer your question, Meldon, by another. Which
do you prefer, your health or your champagne ? "

" My health, of course."

" Well, I prefer my champagne."

There was no more to be said.

My father had many stories to tell of the rollicking,
devil-may-care gentry of Galway and Mayo, stories which
acquit Charles Lever of the charge of exaggeration. The two
chief heroes of the stories were John Bodkin of Kilclooney,
M.P. for the County of Galway, and " Big Joe McDonnell,"
M.P., of Doo Castle (aptly so named), member for the County
of Mayo.

In those days it was a common custom after the ladies
had retired from dinner to lock the door on the inside and

OLD TIMES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND 7

throw the key out of the window. Then every man was
compelled, in the immortal words of Betsy Prig, " to drink
fair." A pint of salt water was the penalty for refusing a
bumper of claret at every round of the decanter. Is it to
be wondered at that many of the guests spent the remnant
of the night on the carpet under the dining-table ? Nor
were these customs wholly confined to the West. I have
now in my possession a vast round table of shiny black
mahogany with a huge mahogany trunk for its central
pillar. It is reputed to have been the dining-table of Lord
Mount joy, which I deported from his former mansion in
Henrietta Street. When it first came into my possession
the under edges were carefully padded with worn green
baize. I can find no other explanation of the padding of
the table than the host's considerate regard for the heads
of his guests when they chanced to fall under it.

The gentry of Connaught were indeed as high-spirited
and irresponsible as schoolboys. One St. Stephen's Day,
about three-quarters of a century ago, my father was one of a
large house party at Kilclooney. In the County of Gal way
St. Stephen's Day was always the great fox-hunting meet
of the year. On that particular day the "Gal way Blazers"
were to draw the famous fox covers of Kilclooney, but the
previous night a black frost had set in and made fox-hunting
impossible.

Here were a score of red-coated gentlemen with nothing ;
absolutely nothing, to do. For a while they grouped them-
selves impatiently at the windows in vain expectation of a
thaw. Suddenly a bright idea struck the host. " Come on,
boys," he cried, " we'll hunt the wren ! "

The suggestion was received with a whoop of welcome,
and the whole party of the chief men of the county sallied
forth in clamorous pursuit of the " King of All Birds,"
whom they chased through hedges and ditches till sundown,
returning with a wholesome appetite and an all-consuming
thirst to dinner at Kilclooney.

The Galway gentleman was a firm believer in the philos-
ophy of Horace, he took the good which to-day had to give
him with no thought of yesterday or to-morrow. John

8 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Bodkin of Kilclooney was involved in a Chancery suit in
which a valuable slice of his large estate was at stake. An
essential affidavit was to be sworn by the owner of the
property. Early one morning his solicitor drove about six
miles from Tuam to Kilclooney to find his erratic client at
home.

" Go into Tuam to swear an affidavit ! " protested John
Bodkin ; " quite impossible, my dear fellow. It's the best
day for trout that has come this year " (he was the best
fly fisher in Galway). " We may not have another like it
for twelve months/'

The solicitor, however, helped by my father, over-per-
suaded him. He actually got on the car for the drive, but
as the horse was starting he shouted, " Wait a moment ! J>

Then plunging through the open door of the room he was
pleased to call his study, he picked up his trout-rod and
vanished through the back door into the open world beyond.
There were fish to be caught, and affidavit and estate
might go hang.

Even John Bodkin of Kilclooney, however, pales his
ineffectual fire before " Big Joe McDonnell " of Doo Castle.
For many years he had represented his county in Parliament
without even once opening his lips in the House. Politics
apart, the position of Member of Parliament was very useful
to Joe. He found the immunity from debt which it conferred
particularly convenient. For Joe always abounded in
creditors. The righteous indignation of the Irish landlords
of our own time — when the tenants obstructed the " processes
of the law " — is a little comical when it is remembered that
a favourite landlord amusement in the old days was to
make the process server swallow the writs he came to serve.

A Dublin wine merchant, from whom Joe had carried off
to Doo Castle (on credit of course) a canal boat of his
choicest wines, began after a time, possibly made nervous
from echoing rumours of Joe's reputation, to press hard
for payment.

Joe responded by a cordial invitation to visit him at Doo
Castle, and the merchant went. It was a scene of open-door
rollicking hospitality. The good merchant's choicest wines

"BiG JOE MCDONNELL"

Of Doo Castle, one time M.P. for Mayo.

p. 8

OLD TIMES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND 9

were drunk by the jovial host and guests in tumblerfuls.
After a few days he could endure it no longer. By this time
he had almost abandoned hope of payment, but he thought
he might make some salvage from the wreck. One morning
he appealed to Joe in the room he called his study at Doo
Castle.

" Mr. McDonnell," he said, " may I have a word with
you ? "

" Certainly, my dear boy, certainly. Only too delighted."

" Well, I am a little embarrassed, and you may help me
out. I have an order from a very old customer for some of
the vintage wines I have supplied to you ; unfortunately I
have none in stock, so I thought you might perhaps let me
have some back. I would allow you of course the full price
in your account."

" That's kind of you, very kind indeed."

" I would not inconvenience you for the world, but it
seems to me that the gentlemen I have met here would just
as soon have whiskey punch as those wines."

" As soon have it ! " interrupted Joe ; " they would a great
deal sooner have it, if they could get it."

" Then in the name of goodness," cried the merchant,
startled out of his prim propriety, " why not let them have
whiskey punch instead of costly wine ? "

" My dear sir," whispered Joe confidentially, with his
hand on the other's knee, " where do you think would I find
the ready money for the lemons ? "

As I have said, Joe never opened his lips in the House of
Commons, but there was no more persuasive speaker on
the hustings, none more adroit in the art of bamboozling a
crowd.

Let a single illustration suffice. On one occasion Joe,
standing as the champion of the " ould faith " in Mayo,
was caught by a horrified supporter eating meat on Friday.
Instantly his popularity departed. There was a shout of
4erision when he appeared on a platform. " Give him an
egg, boys, to take the taste of mate off his mouth ! " and an
egg whizzed past his ear. " Big Joe " was equal to the occa-
sion. He drew a letter from his pocket.

io RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" Does anyone here," he roared out in a voice of thunder
that dominated the tumult, " does anyone here know the
handwriting of His Holiness Pope Pius the Ninth ? "

There was a moment's pause. No one seemed to know the
handwriting of His Holiness. Without waiting for an
answer, Joe read the letter at the top of his voice : —

" MY DEAR JOE,

" I am well pleased to hear you are fighting for the
old faith down in Mayo. You are neither to fast nor abstain
while the good work is in hand.

" With kindest regards for yourself and the boys that are
helping you, I remain,

" Yours very sincerely,

" POPE Pius IX."

A roar of applause followed the name, and " Big Joe "
was once more the popular hero.

"Big Joe McDonnell1' drank twenty-one tumblers of
punch regularly every night after his dinner, so I have
heard from a dozen eyewitnesses. But I was privileged to
see a letter written a short time before his death, in his
seventy-sixth year, in which he strongly recommended
temperance to the young men of Ireland. There was this
much justification for his homily, that no man ever saw
him drunk or even under the influence of liquor. The per-
nicious habit of tippling in the morning or afternoon was
unknown to the wild gentry of Ireland. They tasted no
stimulant before dinner, but they dined about four o'clock
and after that the supply of liquor was unlimited.

In those days there was amongst the Irish gentry in the
West a class called " Sunday men," and to that class for
many years of his life " Big Joe " belonged. " Sunday men "
during weekdays were beleaguered in their fortresses by an
army of bailiffs, but Sunday was to them veritably a day of
liberty and rest. The story goes that " Big Joe " being hotly
pursued by a bailiff went to earth in the hospitable house of
the attorney who had taken out the judgment against him.
There he dined, drank punch, played cards and won heavily,
But a little after midnight he said to his host, "It's time for

OLD TIMES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND n

me to be going home. It is Sunday morning now, and I
have already kept that poor fellow of yours too long waiting
outside in the cold."

On another occasion Joe inaugurated a fox hunt by
moonlight. There was danger that the huntsmen might be
hunted if they appeared in the daytime, so they hunted and
killed their fox by the light of a full moon and returned
gaily to an early breakfast in Doo Castle.

Justice as administered by those country squires, who in
those days monopolized the magisterial bench, was a
curious production. The " code under the palm tree " was
not less hampered by any settled system of law. Yet there
is a story extant in the West of Ireland that proves that
those magistrates of the old school realized the responsi-
bility of their office.

Mr. Burke was a magistrate of large property and position
in his county, but he was not exempt from the failings of
his class and time. On festive occasions when flustered with
flowing cups, or full of supper and distempering drinks, he
gave some trouble to the police.

When summoned before himself, the only magistrate
that habitually sat in the local court, the culprit on the
bench was accustomed to cross-examine the indulgent police
sergeant as to the character of the offence.

" You say the man was drunk, sergeant. Was he in-
capable ? "

" I wouldn't go as far as that, your worship."

" Did he resist the police ? "

" Not what you would call resist."

" Remember you are on your oath."

" Well, there was a bit of a scrimmage."

" Disgraceful, disgraceful. How often has this man been
before me ? "

The charge sheets were examined and disclosed a number
of previous convictions. " An habitual offender," was the
magistrate's stern comment from the bench. " I fear I
must inflict a sharp term of imprisonment."

The sergeant pleaded for mercy, and ultimately a fine
was imposed with a stern caution to the culprit as to what

12 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

was likely to happen if he was again brought before the
court.

The popular story runs that " Big Joe's " assets consisted
of a flute, a bagpipes and an Irish setter. It is certain he
was an accomplished player on the bagpipes. His bagpipes
came into possession of his granddaughter, Miss D'Arcy,
who presented them to the National Museum. It is said
that on one occasion " Big Joe " determined to enliven the
dull routine of the House of Commons by a spirited tune
on his favourite pipes, and with this intent had carried his
instrument with him into the front lobby, but was captured
by his friends at the door of the legislative chamber.

CHAPTER II
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS

Narrow escapes — Efforts of memory — " Wages, not punishment " —
Keeping the peace — Innocent arson — Father Delany — " A New De-
parture in Catholic Education " — A question of honour — " Our Bill " —
" Barred out."

THERE is a strong temptation to set down here some-
thing of the thoughts, feelings, incidents and enjoy-
ment of my young days. Looking back as one looks from
a distance on a valley on which the sunshine is smiling,
those days of one's youth are so vivid, so real, that one is
apt to forget how little interest they have for outsiders.
Besides, I am pledged to brevity. I am writing not as an
actor, but as a spectator ; I am telling of things seen and
heard, and I will compress the days of my youth into as
few pages as possible.

When I was just two years old, so I have been told, I
was industriously engaged in humble imitation of the
gardener sowing seed on the broad flags in front of our
house in Tuam, in confident hope of an abundant harvest.
I went over the verge, tumbled down a flight of stone steps
and gashed my temple on a sharp angle at the bottom.
The whole incident is as clear in my mind as if it happened
yesterday. I vividly remember my mother sitting with me
in her lap, holding the wound together while the servant
scoured the town for my father. Then darkness closed
round me, and I remember nothing else for years. A deep
dinge over my eyebrow remains as a memento of the
incident.

Just such another accident may be mentioned, though a
little out of its order. I wonder how many reckless boys
have had a similar experience ! It chanced when I was

13

i4 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

about ten years old my father one day brought home a
revolver, a queer, stumpy, old-fashioned thing quite unlike
the modern weapon. There were six barrels all the same
length revolving on a pivot, and the muzzle looked like a
circular section of honeycomb. But it was good enough
to fire boyish imagination already superheated by the Wild
West stories of Mayne Reid and Fenimore Cooper. I watched
my father practise with it in the garden, I discovered where
he had hidden it in his study. Then one afternoon I found
myself there alone with the fascinating weapon in my hand.
It was uncapped, which to my boyish mind meant it was
unloaded. But I was not to be cheated out of the treat I
had promised myself. I set the head of a match to the
nipple, pressed the circle of six barrels to my forehead and
tugged at the trigger. Luckily for me the improvised cap
dropped off with the jerk. Having carefully replaced it, I
put the pistol between my knees and pulled hard with two
fingers. The barrels revolved, and the cock rose and fell.
There was a stunning report, and the room was filled with
the smoke and pungent smell of gunpowder. When I re-
covered from my terror I discovered a little round bullet-
hole through the bottom of the shutter instead of through
my foolish head. Strangely enough, the report was not
heard outside the closed door of the study. I never confessed
and I was never discovered, but I fancy I will never again
be so near death till I die.

If I have any qualification at all for the task I have here
set myself, it is a memory curiously effective and defective.
What it catches it catches easily and holds, but then there
are many things it never catches at all. I find it almost
impossible to remember a name, a date or a place. But
anything else I read, hear or see I can recall and retain
with curious accuracy. In my younger days I could
repeat a long poem verbatim after one or two readings.
Later on, as a reporter, without a single note I could write
two columns and a half of a three-column speech, a great
part in the words of the speaker. This faculty, as may be
imagined, was very serviceable to a newspaper writer. I
seem to have been born with this mental equipment.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 15

In yet one other respect the child was father to the man.
I was the most untidy of children, and the good nuns who
were my earliest guides in the paths of knowledge were
continually aghast at my performance and appearance.

There was an old-fashioned well in the convent grounds
where a bucket was let down by a rope and windlass to
the water far down at the bottom of the deep, black hole.
In a moment of inspiration, one of the good Sisters threatened
that if I came dirty to school again I should be let down
in the bucket and washed in the mysterious water in the
bottom of the well. Little the timid lady appreciated the
vagaries of a boy's mind. My imagination was fired at the
prospect of the adventure. To me it was wages and not
punishment. Next morning on my way to school I qualified
at every puddle I met for the delightful expedition, pre-
senting myself before the eye of the horrified nun a mass
of mud, eagerly claiming the punishment of my mis-
conduct.

From the convent school I passed at a very early age to
the Christian Brothers. But here after a few months my
education was interrupted by a very curious incident that
is perhaps worth recording as indicative of the sectarian
feeling in those days, the injustice it inflicted and the re-
prisals it provoked.

At that time sectarianism was rampant in Tuam. There
was in the town a Protestant vicar, the reverend Mr. Sey-
more, who felt he had a mission for the forcible conversion
of benighted Papists. The Catholic festival of Corpus
Christ i was always celebrated by a procession in the grounds
of the Catholic Cathedral, with the Blessed Sacrament
carried under a canopy. All the inhabitants of the town
and of the neighbouring country, men and women, young
and old, flocked to this festival. On one occasion it was
subjected to a startling interruption. As the procession,
chanting a solemn strain with the Host in its brilliant
setting exposed to the reverent gaze of the worshippers,
moved slowly along the Cathedral grounds, the people were
aware of the wild figure of the militant vicar perched on a
barrel in front of the great iron gates. The barrel on which

16 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

he stood was stuffed full of Bibles for the use of his expected
converts. Of a sudden he waved his arms over his head and
shouted in a voice of thunder :

" Repent, you blind idolaters, who worship a wafer for
a God ! "

What else he would have said was never known. There
was a rush of the angry crowd, the barrel was stove in and
the flying missionary pelted with Bibles through the streets
of the town. It is more than half a century ago, but I
remember it more vividly than if it were yesterday. The
wild figure in full flight with long coat-tails streaming in the
wind, and the shower of Bibles with the leaves fluttering and
torn that followed him.

When the feast of Corpus Christi again approached the
enterprising vicar applied for police protection, fearing, as
he swore, a breach of the peace. The demand was granted,
and fifty extra police were drafted into the town. It
happens that my father's house stands in the direct route,
almost midway between the Protestant vicarage and the
Catholic Cathedral. Early in the morning of Corpus Christi,
the District Inspector encamped his forces on the stone
steps and along the railings facing our house. Later on
the worthy representative of the Church militant made his
appearance, armed to the teeth with Bibles. The District
Inspector politely accosted him :

" I beg your pardon, Mr. Seymore," he said, " but I
cannot allow you to pass."

The amazement and indignation of the vicar passed all
bounds.

" I have a duty to perform," he said. " A sacred duty
to rebuke idolatry."

" And I," retorted the inspector, " have a duty to per-
form, to prevent a breach of the peace."

" You were sent here to protect me from violence."

" I will prevent you from provoking it. The best way
to keep the peace is to keep you where you are."

In vain were the protests and threats of spiritual and
temporal punishment. The unfortunate vicar was hoist
with his own petard. All day he paced up and down the

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 17

dusty road in front of the imperturbable police, like Carle-
ton's little tailor, " dry mouldy for want of a beating."

This same vicar was grand vizier to Bishop Plunkett, who
lived in a handsome palace with beautifully wooded grounds
close to the town. Amongst the Catholics of Tuam, who
formed the overwhelming majority of the population, the
proselytizing vicar got the chief credit, or discredit, for the
sharp practices of his lordship.

I was in the very lowest class of the old Christian Brothers'
school that stood on the hill on the outskirts of Tuam,
when the catastrophe occurred which I am about to relate.
The school had been erected at the cost of something over
£1000 (collected amongst the Catholic townspeople), on a
site acquired at a twenty-one years' lease from the Protes-
tant bishop, who was head landlord of a third of the town.
It was naturally assumed that the lease would be renewed.
But to the surprise and indignation of the Catholics, the
day it expired the Christian Brothers got notice to quit
and, to add insult to injury, it was decreed that their school
should be converted into an active branch of the Irish
Church Mission Proselytizing Association.

It is only fair to say that the great majority of the Pro-
testants of the town were as indignant as the Catholics at
the sharp practices to which the Christian Brothers were
subjected ; but the law was the law, and there was nothing
for it but submission.

So the Brothers thought at least, but the boys were of a
different opinion. In those days no National school was
allowed by the Most Rev. Dr. McHale in the Archdiocese
of Tuam, so the Christian Brothers had the monopoly of the
learning in the town. They were immensely popular, not
only with the parents, but also with the boys. The news
of the eviction of the good Brothers awakened a ferment
of youthful indignation, and provoked a wild project of
revenge.

The Christian Brothers were in due course evicted from
the school, and for one night it remained derelict, pending
the triumphant entrance of the missionary society. That
night was enough. How well I remember it all ! It is painted

i8 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

on my memory with the vivid colouring of extreme child-
hood which no scene painting of after life can rival.

The buzzing of a vast, mysterious conspiracy was around
me during our last day at the old Christian Brothers'
school.

Only the ringleaders knew exactly what the project was,
but even the youngest of us knew that something strange,
daring, terrible and heroic was in progress.

After dinner that night I stole out, by arrangement with
a larger boy, whom I met at the corner of the street, to take
part in the conspiracy. From all sides boys converged in
the darkness of the night on the deserted schoolhouse.
How it happened I cannot say, or why it happened, but I
have a suspicion that some secret influence was at work
to keep the police of the town close in their barracks that
night, with eyes and ears shut tight against all warnings
from without.

Eagerly the boys crept through broken windows into the
deserted school, which they were wont to enter with such
decorous reluctance. How strange and still and solemn it
seemed, the contrast how sharp between the dismal silence
of that night and the noisy life of the day ! For a while we
were all abashed by the ghosts of old discipline and decorum
that haunted the place. But the pause was a brief one, the
calm before the storm. A hundred lucifer matches flashed
a sudden blaze, candles were lit and the work of destruction
begun. Oh, how delightful the conjunction of duty and
pleasure for a small boy when breaking windows was an act
of supreme merit, and smashing desks and chairs a most
creditable exploit !

I was talking only the other day to an old schoolmate
who, like myself when a mere child, participated in that
glorious escapade. He has since attained a high ecclesias-
tical position. He is the mildest and gentlest of men, but
he remembers that scene as well as I remember it for one
of the most delightful, tumultuous, exciting episodes of his
life.

Here in the sanctum of learning where we had listened
soberly to lessons, where we had mildly obeyed the voice of

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 19

command, where we had felt the avenging twinge of the
cane ; here in the very home of learning and discipline we
had one wild hour of such outrageous and tumultuous
liberty as I verily believe no other boys have ever known
before or since.

We raged through the place — ink bottles flew in crashing
showers through the windows. The furniture, desks, chairs
and tables, was smashed to firewood and piled in great heaps
all over the floor. The lesson-books, torn to shreds, provided
the kindling material, and soon the entire building roared
and blazed in one vast conflagration.

That was a bonfire, if you like, and we danced and cheered
round it with a will. All night it blazed on the hill, on the
outskirts of the town ; long after we boys had been reclaimed
by our anxious parents and slept peaceably in our beds with
the consciousness of a good work well done, that great fire
still blazed triumphantly, and in all the town of Tuam
no hand could be found, Catholic or Protestant, to attempt
its extinction. When the grey morning dawned the old
schoolhouse was no more.

There was a trial afterwards at the Galway Assizes of
some of the boys who had been ringleaders in the escapade,
but it came to nothing. A jury of Protestants and Catholics
concurred in the acquittal. When the new schoolhouse
came to be built for the Christian Brothers on a better site,
the subscription was more liberal than before, and almost
every Protestant with the exception of the vicar and bishop
participated.

It would seem that bigotry and intolerance were burned
up in that big fire, for in all Ireland there is now no town
in which all classes and creeds dwell together in more
perfect amity than in Tuam.

One other incident of those schooldays is perhaps worth
recalling, as illustrating once again the peculiar memory
that was to serve me well in after life.

The Rev. Brother Lowe was accustomed to give us each
day half an hour's religious instruction, admirably conceived
and delivered. For the better enjoyment of the discourse I
planted my arms on the desk and my face on my arms in

20 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

the attitude of profound slumber, and listened attentively
to the lecture. The Brother saw me. He drew the obvious,
though as it happened erroneous, conclusion from my
attitude, and interrupted his discourse to call out sharply :

" Bodkin, you have not listened to a single word."

I protested.

' Then tell me something I have said," demanded the
Brother sternly.

Forthwith I commenced the lecture from the beginning,
repeated it verbatim while the lecturer listened in dumb
surprise, till I wound up with his final exclamation, " Bodkin,
you have not listened to a single word."

Forty years later the Superior-General of the Christian
Brothers, Rev. Brother Moylan, who was present as a boy,
reminded me of the incident, which had drifted away into
an obscure corner of my memory where I never would have
found it but for him.

It is indeed a little curious how, as I write, a thousand
memories of my young days which were asleep and for-
gotten awake and press for recognition. My boyhood with
all its thoughts and cares, and small adventures that seemed
so wonderful when they happened, have reshaped them-
selves like vivid pictures in my memory. Even now the
trivialities of those long summers' days spent in birds-
nesting and fishing, the snowball battles and skating are
full of intense interest to me. I cannot reason away the
notion that if I could tell them as they happened they would
be of interest to readers who have like precious little memories
of their own from which they would not part for the world.
It is not without an effort that I compel myself to skip
those delightful years.

From the Christian Brothers I passed to the Jesuit College
of Tullabeg, then perhaps the best intermediate school in
Ireland. In the higher classes I had for master (inestimable
advantage) the famous Jesuit, Rev. Father William Delany,
afterwards for so many years Rector of University College,
St. Stephen's Green, and Provincial of the Order, to whom
more than to any other man Catholics are indebted for the
boon of university education. When I first met Father

Photo by Lafayette, Ltd , Dublin.

THE REV. WILLIAM DELANY, S.J., EX-PROVINCIAL

p. 20

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 21

Delany, a man of about thirty-five, he looked a mere boy,
almost as young as any of his class.

Under his guidance, study was a delight. He made us
boys do absolutely what he wished, however seemingly
impossible. One of our feats was a bit out of the common.
At the public display of the college, called " the annual
conversazione," three of us presented ourselves without
books to repeat from memory, parse, scan and translate pas-
sages selected at random from the second book of Virgil's
" ^Eneid," a feat which we all three successfully performed.

No one who ever knew Father Delany need be told that
he is a man of fascinating manner. It is not easy to describe
the charm of his voice and smile. Bigotry and prejudice
could never survive in his company.

Once upon a time Father Delany attended the meeting
of the British Association, held that year in Sheffield.
The day after his arrival he met in the offices of the Asso-
ciation a Sheffield man who, after five minutes' talk, in-
sisted that he should be his guest during his stay in that
town.

" You don't know what you ask," retorted Father
Delany, " you don't know that I'm a Jesuit ; look out for
your silver spoons."

" I'll risk it," said his would-be host.

Father Delany, however, imagined that he would have
more personal freedom at an hotel, and declined the invita-
tion to the manifest disappointment of the other.

As he turned away, another Sheffield man touched him
on the shoulder.

"Don't be a fool," he said abruptly; "I couldn't help
hearing what was said just now, and you will be a fool if
you refuse that invitation. That is the best fellow in all
Sheffield, there is nowhere you would have half so good a
time."

Later in the day the invitation was cordially renewed
and gratefully accepted, and the host justified the
eulogium of his friend.

Some days before the close of the Session he said to
Father Delany, " I want to give a little dinner-party.

22 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

You invite your friends and I will invite the most prominent
of our townsmen to meet them."

Father Delany declares that he never sat down to a
more incongruous or a more delightful dinner. Amongst
his guests were the Rev. Monsignor Molloy of the Catholic
University, and Professor Haughton, the most brilliant and
the most versatile of the Fellows of Trinity College.

A little while before Professor Haughton, whose numerous
professions included the medical, had devoted his leisure
to devising a more merciful method of capital punishment.

Death by strangulation he regarded as specially painful,
and he demonstrated that a longer drop and a more flexible
silk rope would produce instant and almost painless death
by dislocation of the neck.

When the experiment was first tried, however, the result
was startling. Whether the drop was too long or the silk
rope too pliable, the head of the criminal was shorn clean
from the body.

It chanced that after dinner Professor Haughton entered
into an animated discussion with a shrewd Sheffield man,
in which the gifted Professor had the worst of it.

" I think we had better let the subject drop," he said at
last.

" How many feet, Professor ? " was the telling retort.

At the close of the evening the host ventured on a question
which had been perplexing the company.

" Father Delany," he said, " none of us ever met a
Jesuit before we met you, and we are anxious to know what
exactly a Jesuit is. We are tiled to-night ; if you tell us
the secret it will never go farther."

Father Delany referred them to Dr. Johnson's definition,
but they refused to accept it.

At last he said, " I can only try to enlighten you by a
little anecdote. A friend of mine, and a Jesuit like myself,
was lately driving in the neighbourhood of Belfast. He
had a very poor horse, which the driver stimulated by a
torrent of abuse.

" ' Get on, you cripple,' he cried, ' get on, you Papist, get
on, you divil, get on, you b y old Jesuit ! '

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 23

" In a quiet interval my friend put to the driver the
question you have put to me to-night.

"'I have heard you call your horse a Jesuit,' he said ; ' can
you'tell me, my friend, what a Jesuit is ? '

" The man scratched his head. ' Well, sir, I don't know
precisely, but it's something a deal worse than the devil.' '

Someone at the dinner must have broken faith, for next
day the story with the Belfast man's definition of a Jesuit
was published in one of the principal newspapers of
Sheffield.

My friendship with Father Delany stretched from my
schooldays far into after life, and with that friendship there
always mingled something of the affectionate reverence of
the pupil for his favourite master. Just after I left he
became rector of the college, and during his rectorship I
often renewed my boyhood by a visit to old scenes and
associations.

About this time I earned his special favour by a pamphlet
I wrote over the signature of "A Catholic Barrister,"
entitled " A New Departure in Catholic Education," in
reply to some strictures not less unjust than severe on the
Jesuit system of education which had just been published
by the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Petre, afterwards Lord Petre.
My reply had been provoked by the suggestion that es-
pionage was encouraged in Jesuit schools, a suggestion to
my own knowledge wholly opposed to the fact. The only
instance of espionage I remember in my schooldays was
an amateur spy informing the Higher Line Prefect, Father
Charlie Walsh, that two boys were smoking (a high crime
and misdemeanour) behind the ball alley. His reward for
the information was a resounding box on the ear.

" You little sneak," thundered the prefect, " that will
teach you to come tale-bearing to me."

This could hardly be called encouraging espionage.

Another incident which occurred later under the rector-
ship of Father Delany illustrates how honour amongst the
boys was utilized and encouraged in the conduct of the
school.

It happened I was present as a visitor at the annual

24 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

athletic sports. The most popular event of the day was a
blindfold race, to be won by the boy who first passed
through a pair of goal-posts a quarter of a mile from the
starting-point. In such a race it was plain chance must
decide, skill or speed counted for nothing at all.
Fifty or sixty boys, their eyes bound up by the hard-
worked head prefect, stood in a row ready and eager for
the race. I was beside Father Delany when he walked
down the long line of boys, their eyes bound up in variegated
handkerchiefs that gleamed bright in the hot sunshine, one
foot planted in front of the other ready for the start. Like
a general reviewing his troops, Father Delany passed along.
When he reached the centre he stopped short and cried in a
voice that carried clear as a bell to the end of the row :

" Remember, boys, you are on your honour that you
cannot see."

At the word there was a wavering and a breaking up along
the line. A score of boys shamefacedly quitted the ranks
and walked with self-convicting certitude to the prefect to
be re-bandaged. So long as it was a trial of cunning between
boy and prefect it was lawful to best the enemy ; but honour
once invoked was a self-imposed master whose orders could
not be evaded.

It would be idle to deny that I was immensely proud of
my pamphlet on Catholic Education, the first thing in the
shape of a book for which I was responsible. It was read
at the dinner-hour in the Jesuit refectories, in the great
colleges both in England and Ireland. In some quarters it
was attributed to Sir Charles Russell, and above all it
created a new bond of sympathy between my dear old
masters and myself.

While on this subject I may mention another matter of
some importance in which I was associated with Father
Delany. He was at that time hand and glove with the
Duke of Marlborough, Lord-Lieutenant, and his son, Lord
Randolph Churchill, the rising hope of the Tory party.
Lord Randolph determined on an Intermediate Education
Act for Ireland. Father Delany was naturally called into
council. It chanced that a little while afterwards I visited

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 25

him at the college, and at his suggestion made a rough
draft of the proposed measure. When we next met, the
measure, almost unchanged, was half-way through the
House of Commons.

" Well, Father Delany," I said, " our Bill is going
through/'

" Yes, Matt," he replied triumphantly, " and it is our Bill."

I have since, at times, been tempted to repent my humble
share in the business. The Bill, whatever its merits, has, I
fear, helped to foster cramming and kill culture in Ireland.
But one good thing it certainly did. By the sharp test of
competitive examination it dissipated for ever the prevalent
myth that the Protestant intermediate schools were superior
to the Catholic.

But I have got in front of my story.

When I left Tullabeg College, I was naturally anxious
to try my luck at a university. I fancied, rightly or
wrongly, that I would be able to keep myself going
at Trinity College. But my mother had strong con-
scientious objections to the Protestant University, and we
agreed to refer the matter to the decision of the great
Dominican, Father Tom Burke. His verdict was conclusive.
"No Catholic could enter Trinity College," he declared,
"without danger of shipwreck of Faith and morals."

So I was barred out from a university training which two
such different men as Cardinal Newman and Macaulay had
taught me to long for. It is true I entered the so-called
Catholic University, which had neither charter or endowment,
and even obtained an exhibition on matriculation, but the
business was so wholly futile that I abandoned it before
six months was over, sacrificing my exhibition. A smat-
tering of Terence was the only asset derived from that
wasted six months. The National University has, however,
recognized the sacrifice by the honorary degree of LL.D.

CHAPTER III
THE REPORTERS' ROOM

" The hieroglyphic monster " — A confiscated notebook — The slaves of
the lamp — Tricks of the trade — Dick Adams — A slip of the pen —
Lefroy — Guinee — " Old G." — Much virtue in quotation marks —
Going to the devil with the country — " The Chief " — Mimic and
story-teller.

WITHOUT further delay I entered for the Bar, and
while learning law and eating dinners I contrived,
by the influence of Bishop Duggan, to get a place as an
unpaid probationer on the reporting staff of the Freeman's
Journal.

I have described my entrance into Press life and my
progress in its mysteries in a novel, " White Magic," mingling
fact with fancy as fiction writers must. But the novel is
not so widely read that it need deter me from giving a more
prosaic account of my experiences.

Dickens describes how David Copperfield " tamed the
savage hieroglyphic monster." The monster was more
savage in his days than ours ; Pitman has improved the
breed. All the same, I cannot truly say I ever succeeded
in bringing shorthand into subjection. I never found it
pleasant or easy. It was not so much that I had no teacher
outside the text of the handbooks, for in shorthand it is
not precept but practice that tells. In my case, however,
practice never made perfect. At first I tried to kill
two birds with one stone. I translated a number of
French books into English shorthand, and then transcribed
the notes into English long-hand. But I soon found that
learning shorthand by reading, or even by being read to,
was learning to swim without entering the water. There
was needed the living voice of the unconscious and un-
accommodating speaker, and that necessary element many

26

THE REPORTERS' ROOM 27

eloquent preachers unconsciously supplied. Never since
have I listened to so many sermons. But it was a risky occu-
pation, for devout old ladies regarded my note-taking as a
profanity and jogged the hand that held the pencil with
pious elbows. This did not matter so much in my 'prentice
days, but later when I was out of my time and was reporting
for the Freeman's Journal a sermon of the famous Monsignor
Capel, a formidable old lady in black bombazine and
mittens forcibly confiscated my notebook. Recapture was
impossible, so the sermon was not reported verbatim, and
the eloquent preacher when he heard the cause did not bless
the over-zealous intervener.

Though never a really proficient shorthand writer, I
could stumble after a moderately slow speaker often half a
sentence in the rear without coming to actual grief.

Newspaper life is a subject of very general curiosity.
Yet it is surprising how little the outside public, whom he
so assiduously serves, knows about the life and work of a
reporter. A man cultivates acquaintance with his doctor
and lawyer, with whom his consultations are rarely agreeable
and always expensive. As he reads his newspaper every
morning he has a pleasant chat, at the cost of a halfpenny
or a penny, with at least fifty Pressmen, of whose work and
ways he has as little notion as Aladdin had of the domestic
life of the slave of the lamp. The universal newspaper
reader must now and then be troubled with a twinge of
curiosity as to how news is collected, and by whom.

To begin with, shorthand is the " Open Sesame " to a
newspaper office ; for all kinds of literary work it is useful,
for Press work it is almost essential. I am writing the rough
copy of these reminiscences in shorthand, sitting comfortably
in an easy chair by the fire with my notebook on my knee.
Later on I shall transcribe them with such corrections as
may seem advisable. I find that both thoughts and words
come more easily when they can get down at once on the
paper and have not to wait for each other like a confused
crowd at a church door.

But to the would-be reporter shorthand is not a matter of
convenience, it is a necessity. It is the one test of com-

28 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

petence available. For success in the profession of the
Press the aspirant will need quickness, tact, literary aptitude
and a smattering of universal knowledge. But these cannot
be tested at the door. If a man can write even a hundred
words a minute and read them at sight he is worth a trial
as a reporter.

But if shorthand gets him in, shorthand alone won't get
him on. The young reporter who by virtue of his shorthand
undertook to give a " verbatim" report of a military review
was never a very brilliant success in his profession.

In England Press work is specialized, the Irish reporter is
a Jack of all trades. Within an hour he must be gay at a
wedding and sad at a funeral, he must know something about
everything or must at least successfully "assume a knowledge
if he hath it not." He must lecture learnedly on every theme.
He must teach everybody their own business — the farmer
farming, the painter painting, the sculptor sculpture, the
musician music, the doctor medicine, the lawyer law, and
so through the varying phases of human occupation.

A moral and intellectual Proteus he must be prepared to
assume every mood that the occasion requires. There is
nothing he must not be ready to describe at a moment's
notice, and he must write just as much and just as little
as may be required by his editor, dilute his thoughts into
three columns or concentrate them into a paragraph.

The length or brevity of his description is not to be
regulated by his experience, knowledge or imagination, or by
his belief in the importance or triviality of the subject, but
simply by the amount of available space. He must measure
his thoughts with the editor's rule, and supply three inches
or three yards as the occasion may require.

In the Freeman's Journal, as in every well-regulated
Irish newspaper office, there is a chief reporter, whose duty
is to set tasks to the rest. He knows, in his own expressive
phrase, " what's on." He keeps a record of all public
proceedings, he has an instinct for news. Each morning
the reporters meet the chief in the reporters' room, are
duly " marked " in a Doomsday Book for their respective
tasks, and are dispatched through city and country on their

THE REPORTERS' ROOM 29

news-collecting missions. Wherever there is anything
interesting to be seen or heard the reporter is there,
nothing escapes his all-pervading activity. He writes for
a busy and curious public not a word too few, not a word
too many, so that he who runs (for tram or train) may
read and understand.

A reporter is subdued to what he works in, and he becomes
absorbed in his profession. There was a story in the
reporting-room when I joined the staff of the Freeman's
Journal concerning a venerable member who rejoiced in white
hair, gold spectacles and abnormal respectability. On one
occasion, so the legend ran, as he was crossing the ridge of old
Carlisle Bridge he saw a man just under him sink for the
third and last time in the mingled mud and water of the
Liffey. Hastily he glanced at his watch as the head of the
victim vanished.

" My poor fellow/' he exclaimed, with professional
sympathy, " you are unfortunately too late for the evening
paper, but 111 give you a good par. to-morrow."

For this other story I can personally vouch. Early in my
career I was dispatched by the " chief " to describe a novel
and sensational performance at Hengler's Circus. Loo-Loo, a
man dressed as a girl, was shot up by a powerful spring to
grasp a trapeze high up in the centre of the great canvas
dome of the circus. Rightly or wrongly I thought I de-
tected a tremor, a certain suggestion of nervousness in the
slim figure that stood crouching on the small platform close
to the ground. The spring was released, and with a loud
swish the figure shot like an arrow into the air. So swift
was the flight, few could see the wild grasp of the distended
fingers just miss the bar of the trapeze, or mark the strained
body pause for a second in vacant space before it fell.
It struck the edge of the safety net a hundred feet below
and was jerked out into the box of the orchestra.

There was an instant tumult among the audience, who
stampeded from the benches across the arena. While I was
still dizzy with the horror of the scene, not knowing if the
victim were alive or dead, a brother Pressman whispered in
my ear :

30 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" That will make a good par. for the Press Association
if we get it off at once."

Many men of great ability were connected with the
Freeman's Journal when I joined it on the lowest rung of
the ladder. Amongst them was the reckless humorist Dick
Adams, afterwards Judge Adams, of whom I have more to
say later. Very little of his humour, however, crept into
his articles. He was grand, solemn, almost sanctimonious.
On religious subjects he was said, in the slang of the office,
" to write with a quill from the wing of an archangel."

I remember once going home with him from the office in
the not too small hours of the morning. He had written
an orthodox, eloquent article on the Catholic University
Question. Now in private conversation Dick would some-
times allude to the venerable Rector of the University,
Monsignor Woodlock, as Monsignor Deadlock. We had
almost reached home when a horrible suspicion smote him
that by a slip of the pen he had introduced this pet name
into the article. Back we trudged a weary mile through
rain and darkness to find the suspicion was well founded.
" Monsignor Deadlock " appeared conspicuously half a
dozen times in the article. It was set up and stereotyped
when we arrived, and had to be chiselled out of the plate.

Lefroy was another of the Freeman writers of those days,
a bit of a cynic with a clear-cut, vigorous style not com-
monly associated with newspapers. He had a morbid
passion for executions, then open to the Press, and de-
scribed their horrors with a gruesome appreciation almost
worthy of Poe. Ultimately he married a Lord Mayor's
daughter and retired from the service.

Guinee, another able Freeman's writer, did his descriptions
of public functions at home. He filled in the details from
his imagination, and his imaginary scenes were more vivid
than reality. He was a most fecund and versatile writer
who contributed to many periodicals, who made a big
income for a Pressman, and while he himself lived a life of
Spartan simplicity he banqueted a friend with embarrassing
prodigality.

It would be not flattery but irony to describe John B.

THE REPORTERS' ROOM 31

Gallagher, the editor of the Freeman's Journal, as a
literary man. I remember on one occasion Lefroy ex-
pressed his belief that " Old G.," or " Black Jack," as
he was indifferently called at the office, had never read a
book in his life. I suggested that he must have got through
" Jack the Giant Killer " or " Robinson Crusoe " in the
days of his youth, but Lefroy would make no exception.

It was Gallagher who revised the reporters' copy on the
way to the printing office and mercilessly mutilated the
manuscript. Often, I remember, I wrote the first pages and
the last large and wide and the intermediate pages small
and close, in the vain hope of evading his inexorable blue
pencil. Usually he compelled the unhappy reporter to
mutilate his own offspring.

" How much have you there ? "

" About a column and a half, sir."

" Cut it down to a short half."

There was no appeal from the decree.

Gallagher had one curious delusion. He fancied that
inverted commas were a protection against a libel action,
and stranger still an excuse for any eccentricities of style.
One evening I read for him in his dingy throne-room
the customary trite newspaper description of some per-
formance at the theatre which I had witnessed. Some-
one, I wrote, was " exquisitely " amusing.

" Old G." cocked his head critically on one side. " I
don't like that word exquisitely," he said.

" All right, sir," I answered, " I'll strike it out."

" No, no, it's a good word enough, but it's a little un-
usual there. Tell you what, we'll quote it."

" Quote it from what ? " I asked in amazement.

" Oh, that does not matter, just simply quote it."

Next morning the Freeman's Journal duly reported that
the performance was " exquisitely " amusing.

Yet Gallagher, with all his eccentricities, was shrewd and
kindly, and admirably suited for his post. No man could
more successfully gauge the current and trend of public
opinion ; no man could more successfully engineer a boom,
commercial or political. He had the keenest and most

32 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

discriminating scent for interesting news, and an almost
infallible instinct for detecting and rejecting a libel.

For Gallagher the Freeman's Journal, the " Popular
Instructor " as it was sometimes nicknamed, was a kind of
god at whose altar he ministered, whose popularity it was
his duty to preserve unimpaired. Himself a Whig of the
old school, he never allowed his personal views to influence
the conduct of the paper.

When Parnell had established his position in the country
and the Freeman at last reluctantly supported his forward
movement, an old Whig friend condoled with Gallagher on
the changed policy of the paper.

" Yes, yes/' Gallagher aquiesced dismally, " the country
is going to the devil, but the Freeman is bound to go with
the country."

One other colleague claims honourable mention.

When I first joined the Freeman's Journal that word
" colleague " would have been incredible presumption applied
to Theophilus McWeeney, the chief reporter. As well might
the junior clerk of the Treasury claim the Chancellor of the
Exchequer as a chum. Never in my life did I cringe and
tremble before any man as I cringed and trembled before
him during my novitiate. Yet he was one of the best -hearted
of men, rough and tough exteriorly as the husk of a cocoanut,
but full of the milk of human kindness. I tried to introduce
him in manner as he lived into my story " White Magic,"
and am glad to remember he recognized and approved of
the portrait. He may be fairly described as a " champion
reporter." Of him it was said in Press circles that if he
were thrown down a chimney when a meeting was half over
he would contrive to get a full report of it before it rose.
To literary style he had no claim, he gave facts in plain,
bald narrative. Curiously enough for a Pressman of many
years' standing, he loved rather to talk than to write ; but
as a mere reporter he was one of the most efficient I ever
knew, keen as Sherlock Holmes, or shall I say Mr. Dupin,
in ferreting out a secret piece of news, invaluable at a big
public meeting in producing a cartload of copy.

Yet it is not as a reporter but as a humorist that I remem-

THE REPORTERS' ROOM 33

her him best. There was, indeed, never a trace of humour
in his descriptive writings, however provocative the subject.
No man who wrote so poorly ever talked so well. It would
seem that in him the mere feel of the pen or pencil para-
lysed the humour and imagination that revelled in the living
word. His charm as a story-teller was supplemented by a
marvellous gift as a mimic. By a twist of his face, a motion
of his head he brought the man mimicked before his audience.
Mr. Grossmith was the only other man I ever knew who
possessed this singular gift of suggestion.

McWeeney never smiled at his own stories, the wilder the
farce the graver grew that hatchet face with its high fore-
head and its tuft of pointed beard.

We were thorough Bohemians in those good days that are
gone, irresponsible as boys, " who think there is no more
behind than such a day to-morrow as to-day and to be
boys eternal."

Our daily life abounded in practical jokes and horse-play,
but of the good-natured variety that give delight and hurt
not. I have been writing assiduously when a couple of
newspapers have been set on fire beside me, and have with
difficulty rescued my precious copy from the flames. I have
been beguiled by a judicious conspiracy of false testimony
to search at midnight for some non-existent fire in a remote
quarter of the town. But these things belong to the time
when I had been made free of the craft, and that was many
months after my first shy appearance in the reporters'
room.

It was a hard struggle at first, for " the Chief," adopting
the heroic method, flung me to sink or swim into a law court
or public meeting, where I floundered about wildly, all the
time out of my depth. When I had practised shorthand I
had been read to by kindly friends, who waited for me at
the end of each sentence. Now inconsiderate speakers
left me whole paragraphs behind, while my labouring pencil
toiled after them in vain. My notes were in an inexplicable
tangle, illegible to my bewildered eyes as Egyptian hiero-
glyphics. Only very gradually I learned the art of following
the sense of the speaker while my pencil followed his

34 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

words. I learned too in those days that slow reading is
faster than fast speaking, and that quiet conversation is
faster than either.

As I have said, I never grew a proficient shorthand
writer. There were those amongst my colleagues who could
easily keep pace with the most rapid speaker, as a dog
keeps pace with a car, trotting along by the side without
any apparent effort, but I had always to call on my memory
to fill up the gaps left by my pencil.

Two red-letter days stand out in my confused recollection
of my protracted struggle to obtain an assured foothold on
the Press — the day my writing first took on the dignity of
the type, and the day that my fingers first touched coin of my
own earning.

CHAPTER IV
WORK AND PLAY

A life of variety — In the middle of things — Utilizing a Lord-Lieutenant —
Personating a Lord-Lieutenant — Boycotting a Lord-Lieutenant —
Intimidating a Synod — An eloquent assembly — " The Colonel's
corner " — An effective retort — A sharp contrast — The hanging of a
murderer.

FOR a young fellow sound in mind and limb, with a fair
average intellect, there is no life in the world to rival
a reporter's. The work is hard, — mind and muscle are often
strained to the uttermost, but there is no other life that
offers youth so much variety and excitement. The reporter
lives in the midst of events, he sees and hears what other
folks are anxious to read about, he never knows from day
to day where he shall have to go or what he shall behold and
record. In the routine of his day's work he meets the great
men of his time, he is eye and ear-witness to the most
exciting events, the side-shows of life are all open to him,
theatres and social gatherings welcome him. With all
deference to Hamlet, reporters, and not the actors, are in
truth " the abstract and brief chronicle of the time." The
most self-contained celebrities realize that " after death
you had better have a bad epitaph than a bad report while
you live."

The reporter has seldom to complain of incivility, and he
can always retaliate successfully. The principal actors in
great events are only too anxious to facilitate the work of
publicity. A colleague of mine, Mr. J. B. Hall, on the
Freeman's Journal used to tell the following story, which
I give as nearly as possible in his own words : —

" When Lord Wodehouse was appointed Lord-Lieutenant,
there was as usual a natural desire on the part of the news-
papers to obtain some information about the ' new man/

35

36 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

and the procedure of installation at the Castle, and I was
requested to pick up all I could about the Viceregal function.

" I discovered that Lord Wodehouse and his suite were to
depart that very evening from Kingstown to Holyhead,
and as I was then living at Sandycove, I went down to the
mailboat, the Old Connaught, and addressing my friend,
the evergreen Captain Thomas, asked him had the Lord-
Lieutenant, his secretary and party arrived ?

" Pointing to a little group of gentlemen, he said, ' They
are over yonder at the cabin, starboard side ; that's the
secretary with the white flower in his coat/

" So I strolled towards the group, the members of which
were moving to and fro, and politely accosting the gentle-
man with the flower, said to him, ' You, I believe, are one
of the Viceregal party ? '

" ' Yes/ he replied, ' are you coming across ? '

" I said no, that I was a newspaper reporter, mentioned
the name of my paper, and added that I was anxious to
obtain some particulars of ' the swearing in of the new man
at the Castle that afternoon/

" ' My dear fellow/ he answered pleasantly, ' I am
awfully glad I met you, I shall be only too delighted to
help ; let us sit down/

" Then and there he dictated to me a really interesting
account of the inauguration, with many graphic and un-
conventional touches. I asked him a few supplemental
questions as to what he thought were the general views of
the ' new Lord-Lieutenant/ his first experiences of Ireland,
and all the rest of it, and in reply he gave me a fund of
interesting information.

" When he had finished, I said, ' Well, I am ever so much
obliged to you, thank you very much. You, I presume,
are his Excellency's secretary ? '

" 'No, my boy/ said he, with a broad smile, ' I happen
to be the " new man " himself, very much at your service ;
whenever you want any information it is in my power to
give, you will always be welcome/

" For a moment I was dumbfounded, but the contents of
my notebook consoled me for my mistake/'

WORK AND PLAY 37

The same colleague told how on another occasion the
reporters got becalmed in a little yacht near Glengariff,
and so missed the Viceroy's (Lord Haughton's) reply to
an important address. They had secured a copy of the
address before they sailed and, putting their heads together,
they fabricated a column of eloquent but vague reply,
which they wired to the Dublin papers the moment they
touched land and which was accepted without question
as the speech of his Excellency.

Only twice in my recollection was a slight offered to Press-
men, and on both occasions the slight was promptly and
amply revenged.

The Royal Agricultural Society once upon a time held
its show in Londonderry. The " City of Apprentice Boys "
was in a tremor of bustle and excitement. The then Lord-
Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Abercorn, went down to
Derry for the show. It chanced that a special political
significance attended his presence, and there were a host of
reporters on the scene, including Press representatives from
all the principal newspapers of Great Britain.

The Mayor, who had fairly lost his head at this sudden
inflation of his importance, contrived to insult the whole
body of reporters at the first public function they attended.
They determined in retaliation to boycott the Mayor, the
Lord-Lieutenant and the show.

The word Boycott was not known then, but the thing was.
We reporters, in a body, politely declined all invitations to
deputations, meetings or banquets, so the congratulatory
address of the Corporation and the conciliatory response of
his Excellency were lost to a curious public.

Then the Viceregal influence was brought to bear on the
newspaper proprietors, but they were loyal to their staffs
and declined to interfere. The orators, refused the publicity
of print, spoke their speeches to each other, and " to party
gave up what was meant for mankind," while we reporters
took our pleasure at our inn. Amongst those orators who
had come to Derry with their speeches in their heads, or
in their pockets, there was bitter discontent at the sup-
pression, and the Mayor, who was responsible, was the

38 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

target of their reproaches. His slight to the Press, moreover,
cost him the knighthood which he had confidently antici-
pated.

Some time later I participated in a similar interlude of
a less tragical character. A very large number of reporters,
amongst them myself, were brought daily to the Synod
Hall of Christ's Church in the early days of the excited
debates on the revision of the Common Prayer Book, which
succeeded Irish Church Disestablishment.

Time and again we vainly requested the authorities to
provide a screen between our gallery and the antechamber
where our notes were transcribed. So great was the draught
from one room to the other that occasionally the pages of
our " copy " were lifted by the wind and scattered broad-
cast through the hall.

Day after day promises were given and broken. At last
we took the matter into our hands, and quietly retired in a
body from the gallery to the chamber behind it. For a few
moments it appeared our disappearance was unnoticed.
An eloquent military orator, one of the " party of the
Colonel's," as it was called, was at the moment delivering
an impassioned denunciation of a comma in the Athanasian
Creed. Suddenly he stopped short in the middle of a
sentence. He had discovered the void in the reporters'
gallery.

There was a confused buzz of surprise and consternation ;
then blank silence.

A few moments afterwards an influential deputation, a
bishop, I fancy, I am almost certain a dean and a canon,
waited on us and requested us to return to our place, promis-
ing everything. But we had lost faith in ecclesiastical
protestations. We felt ourselves masters of the situation,
and we refused to budge an inch until the promises were
redeemed. The Synodical deliberations were interrupted
for an hour or more till a curtain had been adjusted at the
back of the reporters' gallery, so the triumph of the Press
militant over the Church dilatory was complete.

While I am on the subject I say that the most exciting,
excitable and eloquent assembly I ever attended was the

WORK AND PLAY 39

same Protestant Synod. The Protestant newspapers re-
ported the proceedings in full, their reporters were hard-
worked, but the editorial limit for the Freeman was a column
to a column and a half, so I had ample leisure for the dis-
criminating enjoyment of the debate. The topics to be
discussed would not seem provocative of enthusiasm, but
I heard hours of genuine eloquence expended over a debate
on infant baptism, or the damnatory clauses of the Atha-
nasian Creed.

This thoroughgoing Creed was indeed the chief bone of
contention at the Synod, fought over and pulled to pieces
by the High Church and Low Church, by the bishops and
laity, as fiercely as the body of Patroclus by the contending
Trojans and Greeks. All sorts and conditions of men were
included in the Synod. Dukes, earls, archbishops and
bishops were confronted by a majority of Low Church laity,
who were determined on broadening the Church and ex-
cluding the slightest savour of " Popery " from its ritual.
There was a curiously large representation of the military
element, indeed, one section, known as the " Colonel's
Corner," waged unremitting war upon what they regarded
as the popish tendencies of their episcopacy. It was here
the Athanasian Creed found its fiercest opponents, and here
the irreverent riddle was hatched :

" Why is the Athanasian Creed like a tiger ? "

" Because of its damnation claws."

There were many distinguished soldiers in the " Colonel's
Corner," and more than one of them was decorated with the
Victoria Cross. Amongst them was one fine-looking man,
Col. Elliot or Folliot, I forget which, who had lost an arm
and got the Cross as compensation, who had a special interest
for me. He always spoke briefly and very gently, and as
the only way in my power of expressing my admiration,
I always reported him verbatim. I have often wondered
since what he thought of finding himself fully reported in
the National Catholic newspaper, where archbishops and
dukes were dismissed with a line.

By general consent, the most powerful debaters on the
Synod were the late Trinity College Provost, Jellett, and the

40 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

late Lord Justice FitzGibbon. The most eloquent orator
and chief champion of the Athanasian Creed was Dr.
Alexander, Bishop of Derry, afterwards Primate, a great
poet as well as a great preacher, who retired at the age of
ninety, or thereabouts. They had a curious method of voting
by orders which I could never quite understand, and which
led to continual deadlock. As the result of a compromise,
it was ordained, if I understand rightly, that the Athanasian
Creed should stand in the end of the Prayer Book, but no
one was to be obliged to read it, or presumably to believe it
unless he so chose. However strange it might seem that
the majority should settle by vote the faith of the minority,
there was no denying the vigour and eloquence of the
debates. One illustration alone I find stranded in my
memory, though it is trivial in comparison with hundreds
that have escaped : —

The Low Church party had fallen out among themselves,
and were engaged in acrimonious controversy when Arch-
bishop Plunkett interposed to compare himself and his
episcopal colleagues to Caesar, who, " standing on a height
above the field of conflict, viewed the barbarians destroying
each other."

Lord James Butler, leader of the Low Church party,
instantly replied :

" His Grace/' he said, " perched on an imaginary eminence
above the laity of his Church, rejoices in their mutual
destruction, but this, at least, we can assure his Grace, that
though in his estimation we are no better than barbarians,
we have no intention of allowing ourselves to be ' butchered
to make a Roman holiday/ '

The reporter is the slave of " the Chief's " notebook as the
genie was the slave of Aladdin's wonderful lamp, and the
tasks set him are as various and as incongruous. When I
arrived in the office at ten o'clock in the morning, in blank
ignorance of the day's work before me, I was liable to be
marked either for a flower-show in Merrion Square, a sen-
sational law case in the Four Courts, a philanthropic
meeting, or the investigation of a murder. Often I have been
dispatched at half an hour's notice to a political demon-

WORK AND PLAY 41

stration in the remotest corner of the country, transcribed
my notes on the return journey by the flickering light of a
smoky oil-lamp in the guard's van of a cattle train, and
popped the copy into the printer the moment I arrived in
Dublin. With sharp and sudden change and contrast
my duties shifted from grave to gay, from serious to serene.
" I want you, Bodkin, to do me the presentation to the
Lord Mayor to-day," said " the Chief," scribbling in his
marking-book ; " afterwards you might pick up a par. of the
man who drowned himself in the canal."

The presentation was a splendid performance, attended
by the notabilities of Dublin, followed by a luxurious
luncheon. As luck happened, I had on that occasion a seat
beside the late Professor Haughton, one of the most fas-
cinating of men. Good cheer, pleasant talk and bright
speeches sent the minutes flying past at a great rate.
Suddenly I remembered my second appointment, looked at
my watch, found that a fast car would just get me in time
to the morgue.

With the bright scene still before my eyes, the gay talk
still in my ears, the exhilarating fumes of the champagne
still in my brain, I entered the cold, foul-smelling court that
is dedicated to the dead who have come to an untimely end.
A hastily selected jury sat stolid in their box until they
were invited to view the dead body, when they arose with
strange alacrity, as if they found some morose delectation in
that grim spectacle. The corpse of a man in his prime lay
stretched on a rude bench in the dead-room. He was a big
man and comely, in spite of the disfigurement of death.
The day before he had gone out with a friend, and returning
at night-time had dropped into the canal. His life ended
as suddenly as a quenched candle. In the dim, damp court
his wretched wife sat, rocking herself slowly to and fro in
the stupor of intolerable grief. By her side their children
crouched. The inquest began.

The widow of a day was called and gave her evidence in
a dull monotone, which a careless ear might have miscon-
strued as unconcern rather than the numbness of a sudden
and crushing grief. The police-sergeant told of the finding

42 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

of the body to the accompaniment of the scratching pen of
the coroner, and the jury briefly summarized the tragedy
in their verdict : " Found drowned."

I returned to the office with the details of those con-
trasting scenes cheek by jowl in my notebook, and I trans-
cribed them one after the other for the paper. The reporter
has no need for sermons on the vanity of life.

I had a still more dismal experience on the sole occasion I
witnessed an execution.

Even now, after the lapse of more than a quarter of a
century, I cannot recall that grim scene without some-
thing of the sickening sensation of horror which it first
inspired.

It was a very sordid and brutal murder, with no redeeming
touch of romance to awaken the sympathy of the most
gushing sentimentalist. A tramp murdered an old man for
the sake of a few pounds and was caught red-handed. That
was the whole story, as far as I knew it, when I was
dispatched to Sligo to describe the execution.

Let me confess, I was in no way unpleasantly affected by
the mission ; it was all in the day's work. Sligo, I thought,
was a pleasant town with pleasant people, and the Imperial
Hotel with the river running in front of it was a pleasant
place to put up at. On the way down I was absorbed in a
novel, and murder and execution lay more than half for-
gotten in the back of my head.

By the time I got to my hotel, however, the remembrance
of the gruesome duty of the morrow had slowly worked
itself to the surface of my thoughts, but it was not till I
was alone in my bedroom that the horror of the business
fairly took hold of me.

Suddenly I realized that for the wretched murderer
this was the last night on earth, and he knew it. Vivid and
more vivid the picture grew of the poor wretch awake
through the long night, looking death straight in the eyes.
Of him it might be most truly said that in the midst of life
he was in death, but it was man, not God, that doomed
him. Sickness eases the passage to the grave ; the vigorous
vitality of a man in rude health protests against the

WORK AND PLAY 43

outrage of extinction. Gradually keen sympathy grew to
delirium. I seemed to be present in the condemned cell,
to share the ineffectual agony of the wretch whose last few
hours on earth were slipping away so fast.

Then, as now, my reason approved of capital punishment
for capital crime as the one deterrent by which would-be
murderers are in the least likely to be restrained. But on
that night my imagination completely captivated my
reason, the terror of the condemned murderer grew so real
to me that I would have given my right hand to save that
sordid scoundrel from the doom he so richly deserved.

When at last I slept I was tormented by horrible dreams.
Twice I awoke in a cold sweat with the rope round my neck
and my foot on the drop. With the first glimpse of the grey
dawn, remembrance came back to me clear and cruel,
the thought that for the first time in my life I was about to
see a man die.

The execution was fixed for an early hour. The day
dawned bright and fair, a lovely morning in early summer,
and the cool, fresh air of the early morning was stimulating
as wine. The scaffold on which I stood with some of my
colleagues looked out on a wide, beautiful land, of hill and
lake, radiant in the slant rays of the newly risen sun.

The beauty of the day enhanced the horror of the deed.
Insistent as the beating of my pulse, the thought kept
hammering at my heart that in a little time a man like
myself, loving life as I loved it, must pass out of the world
before my eyes. I was shocked at the callousness of my
colleagues, who chatted and laughed together as if no
tragedy were impending.

A bell began to toll : then from afar off, very faint at
first, but growing more distinct as it approached, was heard
the monotonous murmur of prayer. In slow procession
there came upon the platform the condemned man and the
chaplain walking side by side, the sheriff and the governor
of the jail followed close behind, and at a greater distance
a shy and shamefaced hangman brought up the rear. My
eyes went at once with horrible fascination to the face of
the man about to die. He was pale all over, ghastly pale,

44 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

cheeks, lips and forehead a uniform colour, not white, but
ashen-grey and shiny with moisture when the light touched
it. From the grey lips issued a hollow murmur of prayer.
He seemed to move and speak mechanically as if stupefied
by fear. Slowly they went past, and the doomed man,
still moving like one in a dream, was led to the drop, three
paces from where I stood. Then for the first time he seemed
to wake to consciousness and, like an animal shying at
danger, refused to step upon the drop. The hangman
coaxed and pushed him on as one would coax a refractory
child. For a moment the trembling figure stood black
outlined against the glow of the morning, while the hangman
busied himself with the nice adjustment of the rope, and
drew over the stooped head the cap that shut out for ever the
light of heaven and the beauty of earth.

At that moment my heart utterly failed me. With an
overwhelming sensation that I myself was about to die, I
staggered down the rickety ladder and leant against one
of the posts of the scaffold for support. There was a sudden
jerk, a shiver ran through the wood and for a single instant,
clear against the light, I saw a ghastly figure that struggled
in impotent agony, and then swung gently to and fro a
dead thing at the end of the straight, taut rope.

I remember no more. When I recovered consciousness I
was lying on the floor of the governor's room, to which I
had been carried, and, as sight and hearing slowly returned,
I saw a number of men around me and heard their half-
contemptuous comment on my " softness."

It was a paralysing experience, but I was above all things
a reporter, and a reporter is not allowed to feel. Within two
hours " a full, true and particular account " of the execution
was on the wire to my paper.

CHAPTER V
LONGBOW AND BULL

Two notable colleagues — Splendide mendax — A few illustrations —
Bamboozling Parnell — "A boil that burst " — A breeder of prize bulls —
" So far forgot himself " — " One of three others " — An insult and an
apology.

E:S have an interest all their own. Of course, I don't
mean wicked lies, which are sins, but the gasconade
of narrative, the boasting of men whose imagination runs
away with them, and who are as a rule much pleasanter
fellows to listen to than the dull prosers who stick closely to
fact and never spare you the infliction of a name or date.
I read an article some time ago on lies and the way to cure
them. The way to cure them was by telling bigger lies to
the liar until he retired abashed. In this article, which was
published during the bicycle boom, bicycle lies were princi-
pally treated of. Now golf lies are all the fashion, and have
given rise to the epigram that golfers on the links are
" like as they lie," and off the links " lie as they like."

There is a certain sympathy with the liar of the type I
have described. Everyone knows the story of the man in
the train who passed his card to the magnificent romancer,
who had enthralled and astounded the company. On the
card was the inscription :

" Heartiest congratulations ; I am a bit of a liar myself."

Fishermen also are renowned for their splendid mendacity.

" How comes it," asked an inexperienced novice, " that
the fish in the river a mile off are so much better than the
fish in this river ? "

His guide enlightened him : " Faix, your honour, it is not
that there are bigger fish in the river, but there are bigger
liars on the banks."

But all the liars to whom I have heretofore alluded were

45

46 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

specialists, restricted each to a single department of the
science. It was my good fortune in my Press experience to
know a brilliant, universal liar whose imagination knew no
bounds. He was ready to discourse on all subjects with the
same fluent mendacity. An hour's talk with him was a
liberal education. Let me say at once he was in every way
a delightful companion. Kind-hearted, genial and in all
relations between man and man the soul of honour. But
in the matter of narrative, above all personal narrative,
Baron Munchausen was prosaic by comparison. Wild
horses won't drag from me the faintest indication of his
name or identity beyond the statement that many years ago
he was a well-known and popular figure in Dublin.

As I said, he was a general practitioner in romance, but
it was in the romance of war he specially excelled. I
remember on one occasion happening to be with him at
Rigby 's famous gun-shop. He picked up a revolver and
examined it with the eye of a connoisseur.

" This is foreign make ? " he said.

" No/' said Mr. Rigby, " it is one of our own."

" Yes, yes," said our friend, " I should have known that
at once. In fact, I bought a pair of them during the Turko-
Russian war. One of them I kept for myself, the other I
gave to my friend, Osman Pasha. I remember he was struck
down on the field and dropped the revolver. I bestrode
his body, picked up his weapon and killed the twelve
Russians who attacked him with twelve shots from the two
revolvers; a first-class weapon. I congratulate you, Mr.
Rigby. Osman was very much obliged, and gave me a
present of a cigar-case as a memento of the little incident."

" Do you happen to have it about you ? " I asked.

" Certainly," he answered, and drew out a little shilling
plaited straw cigar-case, with a piece of soiled paper pasted
on it. Inscribed on the paper in his own handwriting were

the words, " From Osman Pasha to as a memento of

gratitude for saving his life."

" But," I ventured to object, " that is in English, and I
was under the impression that Osman Pasha was a Turk."

" Some people's ignorance is astounding," he said. " Of

LONGBOW AND BULL 47

course Osman Pasha was a Turk, but I thought every one
knew he was educated at Stonyhurst."

After that I never ventured to cross-examine my friend.

On another occasion I happened to notice suspended
crossways in his room an old " property " sword from some
theatre, with a huge notch on the blade.

" Do you see that notch ? " he asked ; a blind man might
have seen it. " There is a curious little incident connected
with that. As I was riding at the head of my regiment of
light cavalry, we were attacked by a superior force of
Russian Cossacks. Their leader, a man of gigantic size,
at least seven feet high, struck at me with that sword. I
warded off the blow with my revolver barrel, and notched
the blade, as you see ; then I shot him through the head. A
year afterwards I was passing over the battlefield and
found the skeleton still grasping the sword. I picked it up
as a memento of that little incident/'

A mutual friend, one of the kindliest and gentlest of men,
accidentally stumbled against our hero and made instant
apology.

' You were right to apologize. A regrettable accident
once occurred by the refusal of a man under similar cir-
cumstances to apologize. I was walking on the Rialto at
Venice when a man stumbled against me. With the utmost
courtesy I requested him to be more careful. On the second
turning he again stumbled against me. I cautioned him
to be more careful, and warned that the consequence might
be unpleasant. He laughed at my warning and stumbled
against me, deliberately, a third time. I drew the blade
from my sword-cane and cut off his left leg/'

" My dear sir/' said the astounded gentleman, to whom
the narrative was addressed, " I think that was most
uncalled for."

Perhaps the most astounding illustration of his prolific
imagination is one that has already appeared in print,
and created a startling sensation at the time. It was in the
early days of the Land League in Ireland. Chancing to
meet Mr. Parnell at a late hour of the night in Dublin, our
friend drew him mysteriously apart, told him he had been

48 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

dining that night in the Castle and had heard the Attorney-
General, who was slightly " overtaken with drink," declare
that the warrant was out for Mr. Parnell's arrest.

The story was told with such precision that Mr. Parnell
accepted it as a fact. " I should be glad," he said, " to
get out to Avondale to settle some papers before my arrest."

" I will be able," replied the other, " to procure a coach
and four within an hour's time."

" To whom am I indebted ? " asked Mr. Parnell.

" My name is Finnegan," was the reply. His name was
no more Finnegan than Nebuchadnezzar.

" Before starting," Mr. Parnell suggested, " I must call
at the Freeman's Journal office to see the editor for a
moment." It chanced our hero at the time was, like my-
self, a member of the literary staff of the Freeman's Journal,
but he made no objection to the suggestion, and accom-
panied Parnell to the sanctum of the editor, to whom he
was introduced as " Mr. Finnegan."

The editor was naturally amazed at the sudden change
of name on the part of his subordinate. " Mr. Finnegan,"
quite unabashed, confessed that his name was not Finnegan,
but maintained the rest of his story was true.

" When I heard the news," he added, " I went out to
Dollymount, where I had a hundred men thoroughly drilled
and armed with Winchester rifles. I gave them the hard
word to come in at once in case a rescue should be required.
Passing Ballybrough Bridge, I came on two constables
who called on me to stop. I refused. One of them fired,
and the bullet grazed my side. I turned in my saddle and
shot the fellow dead with my revolver."

In confirmation of his story he undressed himself and
exhibited a red mark on his left side which, to the uninitiated,
might seem the graze of a bullet. But the old pensioner,
who was the night porter of the establishment, was called
in as an expert to inspect the wound, and his verdict dis-
credited the entire story.

" Bullet wound ? " said he. " Bullet wound, indeed !
it is a boil that burst."

Mr. Parnell did not return to his residence in a coach

LONGBOW AND BULL 49

and four that night, and next day the story was published
in the evening edition of the paper, in fuller detail than
I have given it here, but with names attached, and some
satirical comment on the imaginative powers of " the new
Munchausen."

In the afternoon I encountered my friend in a very
bellicose humour. " I have been puzzling myself all day/'
he told me, " since I read the libel in the newspaper, as to
what course I should adopt, and I have not yet made up
my mind whether I should laugh at the whole proceeding
as an amusing hoax, or call out Dwyer Grey (the proprietor
of the paper) for doubting my word."

It is right to add that his career ended in real adventures
more exciting and astounding than the wildest dreams of
his vivid imagination, adventures in which he displayed
the most superb coolness and courage, and died the death
of a hero.

As a contrast to him I have in mind a kindly, good-
natured, harum-scarum colleague, the best-hearted of fellows
and the best-natured, who was curiously unfitted for the
profession he selected. His characteristic blunders are still
the subject of good-natured mirth amongst the reporters of
Dublin. He could hardly manage a paragraph without a
bull in the middle of it.

Samples only, and those, I fear, are not the best, dwell in
my memory. An archbishop was sick, and our friend was
dispatched from the office to inquire as to his condition.
Next day the paragraph appeared :

" Though still attended by Dr. A. and Dr. B., the Arch-
bishop continues to improve."

The doctors were two of the most prominent in Dublin.

On another occasion he declared " a wreck was thrown
up on the coast by a receding wave."

A member of the Royal Irish Constabulary murdered his
sergeant. The tragedy was thus described by our friend :

" Constable X. was a steady and well-conducted young
man, who bore a high character in the force, but on Saturday
night he so far forgot himself as to deliberately shoot his
superior officer."

50 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Perhaps the gem of the collection was his description of
a boating accident. " The deceased," he wrote, " was one
of three others who left the harbour in an open boat."

I remember well what a badgering he got in the reporters'
room over this unhappy paragraph.

" How many men were there in the boat ? " he was asked,
and he promptly answered, " Three."

"That could not be," his tormentor explained; "there
was the deceased and three others."

" Oh, there were four," answered the author of the
paragraph.

" That could not be, either," was the retort ; " for the
deceased was one of the three others."

The interview terminated in an invitation to fight.

One other illustration and I have done.

Our friend, " C.C." we will call him, was dining with two
other Pressmen when the elder of the two, irritated by some
caustic chaff of his colleague, retorted sharply :

" I declare you are as big a fool as C.C."

"C.C." pondered this dark saying in his mind during
dinner. Afterwards he found an opportunity to demand an
explanation.

" When you said that just now," he asked, " did you
mean to insult me, or the other chap ? "

" The other chap, of course."

" That's all right," was the satisfied reply.

CHAPTER VI
DICK ADAMS

" A fellow of infinite jest " — Comedy in court — His first brief — Sala-
mander Murphy — Irish match-making — A batch of good stories — Red
Dan Massy — The King's Double.

TO one other of the colleagues of those old days a
tribute is due. All who knew Dick Adams will accord
to him the supreme gift of humour, though it is not easy to
find illustrations for an after generation ; for his humour
consisted not so much in the quick retort and the droll
story as in the queer twist that he gave to the most prosaic
incidents. He spared neither his friends nor himself when a
laugh was to be raised.

In the newspaper office he played all sorts of pranks,
which, funny as they were in the execution, would be tedious
to recall. When he was called to the Bar there was always a
crowd round him as he stood with his back to the fire in the
Law Library, and men neglected their business to listen to
Dick Adams' inimitable comment on men and things. In
later days he enjoyed a like popularity in the smoke-room
of the National and Liberal Club in London.

Eventually he was made County Court Judge of Limerick,
and while he was a most admirable judge in law and fact and
most popular with litigant and practitioner, his irre-
sponsible humour converted his court into a veritable
theatre of varieties, frequented by all the visitors and
pleasure -seekers of the town. He had a supreme contempt
for appearances and frequently decided a right-of-way case
in the locus in quo, sitting on the fence in dispute, smoking
the pipe of peace in the centre of the eager disputants.

Only once had I the pleasure of seeing him in court, and
as that was a case he decided against me the incident is

51

52 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

naturally devoid of humorous associations, but the following
picture by an eyewitness gives some notion of the conduct of
his court.

I only saw and heard him once, but that day is marked
in my memory with a very white stone. Judge Adams
loved to be eccentric. Apparently in the prime of life, of a
cheerful and ruddy countenance and with eyes that sparkled
with good-natured humour, Judge Adams, who was all
things to all Limerick, was very much at home. Truly, he
seemed just a jolly visitor come to make everybody happy,
and perfectly succeeding.

Surely such an atmosphere of gaiety never pervaded a
court before ! Did not the very dock put forth blossoms
and buds between the spikes ! The good " new times "
had come at last !

It was understood, of course, that certain little matters
were to be adjusted, some re-adjusted. Each process would
be slightly unpleasant for somebody ; this was to be
regretted.

But as it would be a perfectly ravishing experience for
everybody else, was there not much reason for rejoicing ?

A fishing case was called, poaching for salmon was the
offence. Naturally the gentle alibi was the first line of
defence.

But owing to an inexcusable want of backbone on the
part of a witness the alibi collapsed. Then the harassed
gentleman admitted fishing, but for trout only.

" What bait ? " asked Judge Adams.

It was a kind only known to the highly initiated, but his
Honour knew it well. He remembered on one particular
Sunday having captured a ten-pounder with it on the very
spot mentioned.

Straightway judge and accused exchanged fishing stories.
The court and the case were forgotten. By pleasant paths
they wandered on until at last the judge enthusiastically
said:

" Ah, Mr. C., you too are a true fisherman, and that very
bait is the best bait I've known for — for—

" Salm — trout ! yer honour ! " cried the unhappy culprit.

DICK ADAMS 53

Oh, the twinkle of those wonderful eyes and the shout
that shook the court as the curtain descended.

The next case was more interesting. A pretty and prettily
dressed young lady was accused of successful stone-throwing.

A deceased relative had presented a local church with a
stained-glass memorial window. The young lady dis-
approved, and choosing midnight's solemn hour and the
largest heap of grey flints, providentially placed beside the
irritating work of art, wrecked the window.

" You say, Sergeant B., she threw those stones ? " asked
Judge Adams.

" Yes, your Honour."

" And hit the window ? " asked the judge incredulously.

" Every time, your Honour," said the sergeant firmly.

" And was not afraid of midnight ghosts ? " further
inquired the judge.

" Your Honour," replied the sergeant in a hopeless tone,
" she wasn't even afraid of me."

The judge took a long look at the pathetic figure in the
dock.

" To keep the peace for life," was the tremendous sentence
given in a tremendous voice. " And if she doesn't you're to

wire me at once, Sergeant B., and then I shall " and

Judge Adams completed the sentence with a Judge Jeffreys
look.

The young lady now fears to brush the dust off a stone or
look crooked at a stained-glass windlpw.

Here is an illustration of his humour, more pungent and
less playful.

There is, as all lawyers know, a rule of law that while a
judge is allowed to have before him the record of the prisoner
whom he is trying, all knowledge of previous convictions is
jealously withheld from the jury.

A prisoner was tried for larceny before Judge Adams in
Limerick. The case was a strong one and the judge charged
for a conviction, but the jury gave the prisoner, who was
a respectable-looking man, the benefit of the doubt and
acquitted him.

Thereupon Dick Adams read out for the astonished jury

54 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

a long litany of previous convictions against the prisoner
for swindling and robbery of every form and degree.

" Prisoner at the bar," he concluded, " it would be a
straining of language to describe your past career as credit-
able, but this most intelligent jury has been pleased to
acquit you of the last crime laid to your charge, and you
now leave this court without any additional stain on your
character."

Inimitable is Dick Adams' own account of his handling of
his first brief in court :

" At the Cork Assizes thirty years ago I was sitting in the
Bar room, engaged in discussing with a friend, who like
myself had been called to the Bar during the year, that
eternal topic of the young barrister — the hopelessness of
the professional outlook. Suddenly the door opened, I was
summoned by the janitor, and a friendly solicitor placed in
my rejoicing hands that most delightful gift ' a first Brief.'
It was marked two guineas, accompanied by a cheque for
that sum, and thereby retained me to defend an alleged
malefactor who was to be tried in the Crown Court that day
on a charge of stealing a donkey.

" I easily mastered the brief, which contained the de-
positions at the petty sessions and a general denial of all
guilt, and after lunch my man was put in the dock.

" The prisoner looked rather nervous, but the state of his
mind was nothing to his advocate's.

" It was afterwards my fate to defend a great many
prisoners and hold some civil briefs, but the original feeling
of ' funk ' never disappeared. Some actors attain dis-
tinction without ever losing the feeling of stage fright, and
the same is true of many advocates, who as their case is
approached earnestly pray that some trifling incident, such
as, say, the judge dropping in a fit, would delay the case
until next day.

" The judge before whom my prisoner was arraigned
was the late Mr. Justice Lawson, a very pleasant judge if
you had a good case, and very unpleasant if you had a bad
one. Above all, he was a very trying man to defend a
prisoner before, and had no consideration for the feelings

DICK ADAMS 55

of an unfortunate barrister in a hopeless cause, bound of
necessity to try and make the worst appear the better
reason.

" I stumbled through the earlier stages without serious
difficulties, but with the defence my troubles began. I
called a witness to character, who commenced his evidence :

" ' I know the prisoner ; he is a horse-dealer/

!l The judge wrote down the evidence and repeated aloud :

" ' I know the prisoner ; he is a horse-stealer/
' A horse-dealer, my lord,' I nervously interposed.
' Oh, I beg your pardon/ said the judge, ' I thought
the witness said horse-stealer/

" My brethren of the Junior Bar roared at the judicial joke,
a duty expected from all practitioners by all judges high or
low, and as it is commonly, but most untruthfully said,
nowhere more strictly exacted than in the County Court of
Limerick.

" My witness disposed of, I began to address the court.
Nervousness had by this time completely overmastered me
and I no longer quite knew what I was saying. My rhe-
torical style was, I believe, originally lofty and restrained,
but I had long contributed to a great daily paper which still
flourishes, and there I had learned to be a little flamboyant.

" In an evil moment I began : ' Gentlemen of the jury,
my client's lips are closed, he stands dumb in the dock
before you, but if ever the genius of science descends on the
chaos of English law '

" ' Don't mind the genius of science/ said the pitiless
judge, ' but go on with your case/

r' The Junior Bar again roared, and I, scarcely knowing
whether I was on my head or my heels, delivered my per-
oration. ' At any rate, my lord and gentlemen of the jury,
no one saw my client steal the donkey/

" When the jury retired I got back to the fire in the Bar
room, where I sat down, firmly believing that my legal
career had opened, culminated and closed in a single day.

" In my despair there came to me a very brilliant and
very good-natured leader of the circuit.

" ' Don't be a fool, Dick/ he said to me ; ' don't mind old

56 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Lawson, he means no harm, it's only his downright way
with every man who defends a prisoner. Many a time I've
suffered from him.'

" I took the well-meant advice — forgotten, I suppose, by
its utterer in half an hour but remembered by me at the
end of thirty years. I went back into court just as the jury
were coming out of their room. The issue paper was handed
down to the Clerk of the Crown. He read it out, I gasped
with amazement. ' What ! ' said the judge indignantly.
'Yes, my lord/ said the Clerk of the Crown, 'it's "Not
Guilty." '

" As I left the court in utter astonishment an acquaint-
ance on the jury whispered to me :

" ' Mr. Adams, we thought the judge was too much down
on you altogether, so we gave your client the benefit of the
doubt."

Dick Adams used also to tell with great gusto of the utter
overthrow of a case, in which he was engaged in Cork, by a
single imprudent answer of a too-friendly witness.

The plaintiff for whom he appeared as counsel was a
gentleman known to his familiar friends as " Salamander
Murphy." The nickname had a special significance, for
Mr. Murphy had been engaged in very many successful
actions against insurance companies, and the delicate
suggestion was that he " lived on fire."

In this particular case the company resisted his claim
for compensation for the burning of his shop, but they
had little to go on except general repudiation of the
plaintiff.

Dick Adams, as counsel for the plaintiff, examined a
witness who rented unfurnished apartments over another
shop of plaintiff's. In reply to question of the counsel he
stated that he brought his own " valuable furniture " into
the rooms and that he was not insured.

' You had perfect confidence in Mr. Murphy ? " asked
Dick.

" Perfect."

" And you had no fear of a fire ? "

" None in the world. Salamander is not the man to go

DICK ADAMS 57

back on a friend. I knew he would give me the hard word
if anything was going to happen."

Dick lost his case.

I trust that no apology is needed for a budget of Dick
Adams' good stories, for the most part from his own lips.

" The Irish Cupid/' he maintained, " has a double
existence. In the poets he is a rosy god all smiles and
flowers."

Young Rory O'More courted Kathleen Bawn,
He was bold as a hawk, — she as soft as the dawn.

The real Irish Cupid is a more business-like deity, and the
match of Mary Hayes, whose father has a bawn of fifteen
cows, is proceeded by as much negotiation as if she were an
American heiress with a few million dollars. The truth is,
of course, that the young farmer cannot marry without a
fortune, and that the couple of hundred pounds the lady
brings is given to his father, who, securing himself a pension,
or " liberty," gives up the farm to the young couple,
sends a boy to America with some of the money, apprentices
another to a trade with more and marries a daughter with
the balance.

" The Irishman/' Dick Adams declared, " has, above all
things, a saving sense of humour ; he loves a good story,
though it is against himself/' Hence the growth of the
" Shrove Tuesday Tales," humorous exaggerations of the
undoubted truth that Irish rural matches are often matters
of arrangement.

Here are a few which have never before appeared in
print : —

On a Shrove Tuesday morning a young girl is roused from
her sleep by her mother.

" Get up, Mary," said the mother.

" For what, mother ? " asked Mary, who was not anxious
to rise.

" To get married," said the mother.

" Yerra, to whom, mother ? " said Mary, springing out
of bed.

" Yerra ; what's that to you ? " was the indignant
answer.

58 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Here is another tale : —

On the Shrove Tuesday eve a young girl bursts in on
some of her companions, " Girls, I'm going to be married."

' To whom, Mary ? " queried all her friends together.

r' To one of the Dalys at the Cross."

" To which of them ? " was again the unanimous query.

" Well," said the embarrassed Mary, " it was very dark
by the fire and I did not notice which of them."

Mike Harrington wooed and won the heart of Ellen
Downing. Unhappily, the faithless man cast an eye on
Jane Donavan, who was quite as good-looking as Ellen and
had a genuine two hundred pounds, while Ellen Downing
had only a doubtful one hundred and fifty. So the depraved
wretch jilted the poor girl, proposed to and was accepted by
Jane Donavan.

On the Shrove Tuesday morning Jane drove with her
intended on an outside car to the church to be married, but
as she passed Ellen's cottage she saw the poor girl at the
door indulging in the feminine luxury of a good cry. She
stood at the altar in due course and the priest asked her
would she take " this man to be her husband."

" No, Father," she said ; "no, it will never be said of me
that I canted Nell Downing out of a husband."

And " with that," as the Irish story-tellers say, she walked
out of the church. Mike looked exceedingly foolish, and
was soundly rated by the good priest, who had previously
known nothing of his conduct. Then Ellen Downing was
sent for, a reconciliation was effected and she and Mike were
married there and then and lived happily ever afterwards.
The kind-hearted Jane next Shrove Tuesday made the best
match in the parish.

In some parts of the county of Limerick a strange custom
prevails. A bashful young man when he goes a-wooing
brings with him a friend who has more power of speech and
is known as " the Spaker." " The Bachelor " and " the
Spaker " went to dine at the house of an eligible young
girl.

She was bright and clever and had a box of novels from
a town cousin, so she began to test the literary tastes of her

DICK ADAMS 59

suitors. " Do you prefer Jane Barlow or Rosa Mulholland ? "
she asked. " Have you read ' Knockmagough ' or the
poems of Mr. Yates ? "

The bachelor was not a man of letters. The whiskey punch
had began to circulate. He whispered to " the Spaker,"
" Take plenty of that, for I don't think we will be coming
here any more."

There is a vast estate in the west of Limerick on which
" Absenteeism " is presented in its best form. The land-
lord, the head of one of the greatest European families,
has little or no pecuniary interest in the estate, but it has
been managed by a dynasty of land agents — grandfather,
father and son — who have ruled it well for the owners and
happily for the tenants.

One of the dynasty was approached by a tenant who was
four years in arrears.

" Forgive me two years, sir," said the tenant ; " I want
to get married and no girl will have me with these arrears."

The agent, who was a wise man and knew that arrears
are a millstone to a tenant and very little value to the
landlord, forgave them accordingly.

A year or two passed away and the tenant appeared again
at the office asking to be relieved of the balance of the
arrears, and pleaded that they were still standing in the
way of his matrimonial designs.

" Why," said the agent, " you told me if I took off two
years you could get married."

" Well, sir, I tried," was the answer, " but the only girl I
could get to have me was the smith's daughter, who has only
one eye, and if I have full receipt I could get a girl with two
eyes, and as good as any in the parish."

The plea was irresistible. The two years were remitted,
and the young man married a girl with two eyes of that
" unholy blue " which is nowhere so charming as among
the green hills and pleasant valleys of west Limerick.

The Irish farmer has, as a rule, little sympathy with a
son's captiousness in the matter of matrimony. He holds
the view which crabbed age has always pressed upon
romantic youth.

60 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Away with your witchcraft of beauty's alarms,
The slender bit beauty you clasp in your arms ;

Oh, give me the lass that has acres of charms,
Oh, give me the lass with the well-stockit farms.

" The girl is a decent father's and mother's daughter,"
urged such a sire on a reluctant son, " and she has a nice
bit of land of her own."

" But, father/' objected the lad, " she has a lame leg."

"Is it an opera dancer you want, sir ? " asked the old
gentleman fiercely.

I have often heard Dick Adams protest vigorously
against the theory that because a man tells a more or less
humorous story he tells it to jeer at his country. " I tell
these tales," he used to say, " as ' founded on fact,' not as
facts." Love in Ireland, as elsewhere, often presides when
what is called the " Torch of Hymen " is lighted. But love
smiles, too, on unions that owe their origin to prudence.
Happy and pure are homes of Ireland, happier and purer
than any others on earth.

In all seriousness, it is a matter of greatest advantage
that young people in Ireland do not, as in other days, rush
into early and imprudent marriages. Marriages in Ireland
are now later than in most other countries.

" So Lizzie Ahern is going to be married," I once said to a
man in east Cork.

"It is time for her," he replied, "sure the 'bridhogue'
was left at her door every Shrove for the last nine years."

The " bridhogue " is a rag doll left at the door of girls who
won't clear out of the way of other maidens by getting
married. It is an attention bitterly resented by the males
of the family, and often causes broken heads.

" I was driving once," Dick said, " in the county Tip-
perary when we passed a nice country place.

" ' Who lives there ? ' I asked the driver.

" ' A gentleman they call Red Dan Massy,' was the reply.

" ' And why,' I asked, ' do they call him Red Dan ? '

" ' Begorra, I don't know, sir/ said the driver, ' for his
hair is black and his name is William.' '

The owner of the house was the gallant General Massy,

DICK ADAMS 61

whose bravery at the attempt to storm a famous Crimean
fort won for him the soubriquet of " Redan Massy."

Great men have their weaknesses. Not a little proud
was poor Dick Adams of a very striking resemblance to his
late Majesty King Edward VII. He wore his beard trimmed
in the same fashion and occasionally frequented the same
health resorts. He had many fantastic stories to tell of his
adventures and misadventures from being mistaken for his
Majesty.

" ' See here, Richard/ said the King to me on one occasion,
' this won't do, you know.'

" ' What won't do, your Majesty ? ' asked I.

" ' Well, it comes to this : you or I must leave Homburg,
and I vote we toss up which it is to be. I don't in the least
mind them mistaking you for me ; I don't mind the bands
playing " God save the King " whenever you appear. But
when I cannot show my face out of doors without some
seedy-looking chap clapping me on the shoulder and singing
out with a strong Cork accent, " Hallo, Dick, how's your-
self ? Come and have a drink," it becomes a bit tiresome.'

" So we tossed up," Dick concluded; "he won, and I left."

CHAPTER VII
FATHER JAMES HEALY

The Irish Sydney Smith — A diner-out of the first water — Tuft-hunted,
not tuft-hunter — Outdoor relief — His curate kept a carriage — His
retort to Judge Keogh — Hit all round — " You don't cut your friends " —
Under the mistletoe or the rose — A kindly act — An eloquent tribute.

BEFORE I pass from my experiences as a reporter I
may be allowed to recall two very remarkable men
with whom my acquaintance gradually ripened into friend-
ship. Both were Catholic priests, Father James Healy and
Father Tom Burke, O.P., one the greatest wit, the other
at the same time the most eloquent preacher and the
richest humorist of their generation.
Of Father Healy it may be truly said

A merrier man

Within the limits of becoming mirth
None ever spent an hour's talk withal.

For many years he held a unique position in Dublin. He
was the Sydney Smith of the Irish metropolis, " a diner-out
of the first water." His social charm made him a welcome
guest at the table of such men as Gladstone, Salisbury and
Disraeli. It was the ambition of every distinguished man
who lived in Dublin, or who visited Dublin, to dine in
Father Healy's company. In one of Lord Randolph
Churchill's letters, preserved in the admirable biography by
his son, he writes after a session of unusual stress, that
nothing could restore him but " a night spent in Father
Healy's company." The festivities of Dublin circled round
him. He was overwhelmed with the invitations of the great,
while on the other hand an invitation to his own humble
" shanty " in Little Bray was the most prized of all social
distinctions. A ceremonious Viceregal banquet would be

62

Photo by Chancellor and Son, Dublin.

REV. FATHER JAMES HEALY

Parish priest of Little Bray.

p. 62

FATHER JAMES HEALY 63

immediately postponed if it were found that " the Padre "
was giving one of his little dinners the same day and had
honoured the Viceroy with an invitation.

Those eagerly sought -for dinners consisted of a single
joint, sometimes preceded by fish or soup. He had one
servant, who when she had cooked the dinner attended at
table. The host carved and the guests passed the plates
round. On one occasion a noble visitor who had been
brought by the Viceroy to dinner, much to the amusement
of the other guests, looked round for someone to take his
coat.

" Excuse me, my lord," interposed Father Healy, " all
my footmen left without notice this morning and I have not
had time to replace them ; I will take your coat myself if you
will kindly allow me."

"Ill earn sixpence, Father Healy," said Earl Spencer,
when the genial Padre was hastening from his own dinner-
table to attend a sick call, and his Excellency helped him on
with his coat in the hall.

" And I," retorted Father Healy, " will ' take the benefit
of the Act.' "

Father Healy was poor. The income of his parish did not
exceed £200 a year at the outside, and he used to say good-
humouredly he did not know how he would live at all if it
were not for the " outdoor relief " he received. His outdoor
relief, which took the form of fruit, game and wine, he freely
shared with the poorest of his parishioners.

Nor were game from the preserves, fruit from the hot-
houses and wines from the cellars of the nobility the only
forms which Father Healy 's " outdoor relief " assumed.
His well-to-do parishioners made liberal contributions to his
larder. A fine clutch of young ducks arrived among these
gifts, and Father Healy watched their progress from the
pond to the table with lively satisfaction. Seeing them
sporting in the water, he exclaimed with a whimsical com-
passion, " Poor innocents, how they enjoy themselves,
never thinking that my green peas are growing on the other
side of the garden wall ! "

Cardinal McCabe loved to tell the story of his first visit to

64 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Father Healy's parish. His Eminence attended in cope
and mitre at the humble church in Little Bray to administer
the sacrament of confirmation.

" I hear you have got a grand cathedral here," he said
jestingly when Father Healy hurried to receive him at the
gate.

" ' Enter, its grandeur overwhelms you not/ " was Father
Healy's ready reply, quoting from Byron's description of
St. Peter's at Rome.

On another occasion he asked a priest to assist him in
some special ceremonial. The priest excused himself,
saying he knew little about ceremonies.

" My dear fellow," said Father Healy, " you do not know
less than I do."

" I am sure to lose myself," said the priest.

" No one can be lost in my church," retorted Father Healy.

The gifted Father Healy, the chosen friend of the great
ones of the world, was of humble origin and was never
ashamed of it. His father was a provision merchant in
James' Street, and to the end Father Healy retained pleasant
recollections of his father's occupation.

One day when driving in a gig with an aristocratic friend
their way was blocked by a drove of pigs.

The aristocrat so far forgot himself as to exclaim :

" Damn those swine ! "

Father Healy quietly interposed; " I would rather see
them saved."

I remember reading somewhere a story of a Protestant
bishop who, on receipt of some complaints of an incumbent
of his diocese, wrote privately to a churchwarden in the
parish concerning the clergyman in question, to inquire
if he preached the true gospel and was correct in his conver-
sation and carriage.

" He preaches the gospel right enough," the reply ran,
" but he keeps no carriage."

The reply fits Father Healy. He preached the gospel, but
he kept no carriage. He never had a conveyance of his own,
and on one occasion driving in a phaeton he encountered a
nobleman of his acquaintance.

FATHER JAMES HEALY 65

" Hello, Father Healy," exclaimed his lordship, " do
you keep a phaeton ?

" No," replied the priest, with absolute truth, " but I
keep a curate that does."

After all, it is no small wonder that Father Healy lives
in the mind of the general public chiefly as a sayer of good
things, for no man that ever lived said better. He has been
compared to Sydney Smith, but the comparison is hardly
just — to Father Healy. The wit of the Irishman was not the
less brilliant of the two, and he had a quiet, keen humour
which was all his own. There never was a stauncher friend :
he maintained to the last his friendship with Judge Keogh,
even after Judge Keogh became generally obnoxious to the
priests and people of Ireland by his ferocious judgment in
the Gal way election petition. But Father Healy did not
spare his friend an occasional sharp touch where the occasion
seemed to demand it.

In a quasi-political trial Father Healy was summoned as
a witness, and was chaffed by Judge Keogh about the dangers
of cross-examination.

" What will you do, Father Healy," said the judge, " if
that villain Butt cross-examines you as to your friendship
with me ? "

" I will do my best," replied Father Healy.

" What will you answer," the judge persisted, "if he
asks you ' Is it true that you a good Catholic and an Irish-
man are a friend of the infamous Judge Keogh ? '

" I will appeal to the court for protection," retorted
Father Healy. " I will say, ' My lord, am I bound to in-
criminate myself ? '

On another occasion the judge met him and stopped him.
" Father Healy," said he abruptly, " I have a crow to
pluck with you."

" Let it be a turkey, and I will be with you at six p.m./'
said Father Healy.

" All right," said the judge, delighted at the chance of
Father Healy's company, " but I must have the crow too."

" Then," said Father Healy, " I hope it will be a crow
without caws."

66 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Another of Father Healy's special friends was Father
Meehan, a distinguished author whose caustic tongue
alienated most of his acquaintances. Even Father Healy
himself did not always escape, but he gave as good as he
got. They travelled together on the Continent, and Father
Healy took occasion more than once to give Father Meehan a
touch of the caustic he so freely applied to others. On one
occasion at an hotel, meeting some friends, and ignoring the
fact that Father Meehan was within earshot, he proceeded
to describe him to the company.

" Do you see that fellow yonder ? Though we are not on
speaking terms we are obliged to travel together because he
cannot manage one word of the French and is obliged to
come to me to help him out of every difficulty.''

The fact that Father Meehan was an admirable linguist
gave special sting to the description.

Next day Father Healy received a curt note from Father
Meehan intimating that they must part company, and
requesting the return of a razor he had lent. Father Healy
replied :

" My dear Meehan, I return you the razor. If you should
want to commit suicide I should advise you to get it ground
first."

Finding, however, that Father Meehan took his pleasan-
tries too seriously, Father Healy wrote : " Life is too short
for this kind of folly. Come and dine with me to-morrow."
Henceforward their friendship was without a break.

Father Healy wrote no books and made no speeches.
There was nothing of the controversialist about him, he
" lacked gall to make oppression bitter." " Of manners
gentle and affections mild, in wit a man, simplicity a child,"
it was his mission in life to give delight and hurt not.

In Ireland among the extremists Father Healy was not
popular, but no man did more to disarm bigotry and
prejudice with which Irishmen were regarded on the other
side of the Channel. His witticisms were keen indeed, but
always kindly and left no sting behind.

Never posing as a politician, he distributed his good-
humoured raps with perfect impartiality to the extremists

FATHER JAMES HEALY 67

of both sides. Meeting a parish priest who had been active
in the agrarian agitation, Father Healy asked him how he
was getting on at politics.

" Oh, Father Healy," the friend replied, " I am getting
too old for politics, I leave all that kind of thing to my
curate."

" Quite right," Father Healy retorted, " quite right. It
would never suit you at your time of life to lie out at night
in a wet ditch for a pot-shot at a landlord. You would get
your death from rheumatism."

On the other hand, when Mr. Balfour on one occasion
asked him if there was any truth in the statements in the
Nationalist papers that he was generally disliked in Ireland,
Father Healy promptly replied :

" My dear sir, if the devil were half so well hated my
occupation would be gone."

To attempt a selection of his good things is to attempt the
impossible. They flowed from him freely and carelessly as
the jewels from the lips of the little girl in the fairy tale, and
only a few have been picked up and treasured in the memory
of his friends and admirers.

Nothing happier can be imagined than his reply to the
dyspeptic priest whom he encountered fresh from his sea-
water bath, and who, having assured him that he often
derived much benefit from drinking a tumblerful of salt
water, anxiously inquired :

" Do you think I might venture on a second ? "

Father Healy, after grave consideration, solemnly
answered :

" I think you might, I don't believe it would be missed."

On another occasion there was a discussion in company
regarding an illiterate acquaintance who had suddenly
taken to constant attendance in Kildare Street Library.
Various opinions were advanced to account for this meta-
morphosis. One of the company at last suggested that he
had heard their friend was about " to bring out a book."
Father Healy interposed with a quiet objection :

" I don't think he can, he is too well watched."

A familiar friend introducing Father Healy to his new

68 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

library and pointing to the books on the well-filled shelves,
exclaimed :

' You see around you my dearest friends ! "

Father Healy took a volume from a shelf and examined it.

" I observe/' he said quietly, " that you don't cut your
friends."

Not less felicitous was his retort to his friend the Pro-
testant Archbishop, whom he met as he was hurrying on for
a train. The Archbishop showed him his watch and assured
him that they had abundance of time. They arrived to see
the train steaming out of the station.

The Archbishop was much distressed. " I cannot tell
how it happened, Father Healy ; it is a valuable presenta-
tion watch and I had the utmost faith in it."

" Better have had good works in it," retorted Father
Healy.

He had a discussion with a distinguished lady at a garden
party at the Viceregal Lodge as to the part favouritism
played in the Irish promotions. The lady stoutly maintained
that success was the reward of ability and industry.

" Men get on," she said, " by sticking at their business."

Father Healy indicated a lawyer politician who had just
risen to a very distinguished position. " How would you
say he got on ? " he asked innocently.

" By sticking at his business," the lady stoutly replied.

" You surprise me," said Father Healy; " I always thought
he got on by sticking at nothing."

Father Healy could take a joke as well as make one.
There was no taint in his nature of that prudery that takes
offence where none is intended.

It is told, with what truth I know not, that one Christmas
night at a small gathering at the Viceregal Lodge the beautiful
Countess Spencer (Spenser's " Faerie Queene," as she was
called in Ireland) stood defiantly under a cluster of silver
berries and sent a playful challenge to Father Healy.
" Now, Padre, now is your chance under the mistletoe."

Like a flash came the smiling reply :

" Oh, no, my lady, we only do that sub rosa."

I was walking with Father Healy through Westmorland

FATHER JAMES HEALY 69

Street when a ragged loafer came begging to him. Pointing
after him as he slouched away, sixpence richer than he came,
Father Healy said to me :

" That's a nice condition for a poor Irish landlord."

" Why in the name of wonder," I demanded, "do you
say that fellow is an Irish landlord ? "

" He has the universal and infallible hall-mark."

" And that is ? "

" A rent in a rear."

On another occasion I met Father Healy hurrying along
the platform in Westland Row Station. The fish for one of
his little dinners had miscarried.

" I am looking for a lost sole," he explained.

" Well," said I, when the situation was made plain to me,
" I hope it will be a good sole when you find it."

" If it is not," Father Healy promptly responded, " it will
be damned."

I have been often in company with this genial priest, and
have been kept in a constant state of delight and amusement
during the evening, but when I attempted afterwards to
remember the good stories which delighted the company,
I found my memory dazzled by his brilliancy as one's eyes
are dazzled by too much light, and only remember how
much we laughed during the evening and who made the
laughter.

Though Father Healy deservedly ranks as one of the
brightest and most genial of Irish humorists, though as a
sayer of good things he holds his own with Swift, Moore,
Curran and O'Connell, yet amongst those who knew him
best it is the unostentatious piety and kindly heart, " open
as day to melting charity," of the Soggarth Aroon, that are
best remembered.

The following is one of the many stories told of his
whimsical benevolence. Father Healy had in his parish and
under his charge a schoolmistress whom he regarded with
special favour. The girl was musical and anxious to cultivate
her talent. With this object she resolved to buy a piano on
the three years' system, and applied to Father Healy for the
necessary certificate of character to be forwarded with her

70 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

application. She was much distressed for two long days to
receive no reply, and feared she had offended the priest,
but on the third day Father Healy himself came to her
cottage and behind him came a donkey cart containing a
piano.

" It's my own, my dear," he said. " I am getting too old
for music, so instead of giving you a character which you
don't require, I give you a piano which you do."

His curate, the Rev. Joseph Burke, who knew him well
and loved him, pays an eloquent tribute to his illustrious
friend.

" The world," he said, " of which he was an ornament,
knew him and idolized him, but the few who were acquainted
with his other and inner life, his childlike faith and tender
piety, revered and blessed him, not for his mental power only,
but also and more so, for his hidden goodness. The cheery
word, that so often sweetened the gift from his open hand,
is still cherished in the hearts of the poor of his parish."

On one occasion, at the late Lord Justice FitzGibbon's
table, Lord Randolph Churchill paid a compliment to Father
Healy in a style essentially his own.

" You are a dangerous man, Father Healy. It is well
for us Protestants that all priests are not like you, Padre."

Lord Randolph was often cynical, and the guests looked
grave, not knowing what was to follow.

" How so ? " asked the Padre, quite at his ease.

" Because in that case," replied Lord Randolph, " we
would all become Catholics."

From a photograph by Schroeder, Dublin.

REV. FATHER TOM BURKE, O.P.

P. 70

CHAPTER VIII
FATHER TOM BURKE

A prince of preachers — An unrivalled humorist — Extracts from his letters
— His life in Rome — The earliest remembrance of his childhood — Finn
Macool and Finnesse — " An ould goose " — His mother-in-law —
Mimicking a cardinal — Hoaxing a bishop.

OF Father Tom Burke also it may be truly said that he
was above all things a devout Christian priest. But
there was no taint of the sour-souled Puritan in him. He
was as light-hearted as a child and as full of the innocent
enjoyment of life. " How easy it is, Matt/' he said to me
one day in the garden at Tallagh, " to serve God joyfully in
this beautiful world ! "

The greatest preacher of his generation he was as fluent
in Italian as in English, and his pre-eminence was as fully
recognized in Rome as in Ireland. " The Prince of Preach-
ers " was the name conferred on him by the late Pope after
hearing him in St. Peter's.

Of stately presence, with a rich, sonorous voice that filled
the largest church like articulate and harmonious thunder,
he swayed with despotic power the hearts of his congregation.
This is no place for sermons, but I cannot refrain from
repeating a characteristic passage in a scorching denuncia-
tion of the vice of intemperance.

He described the drunkard lying helpless in the gutter.

" A stray dog comes up to him, snuffs at him, wags his tail
and walks away contemptuously. The dog can walk, the
man can't."

The same evening at dinner a good-humoured parish priest
chaffed Father Tom on the distinction between his precept
and practice.

71

72 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

' You preached us a great sermon against drink, Father
Tom/' he said, " but you don't seem to mislike your own
tumbler of punch."

" I preached against drunkenness, not against drink/'
retorted Father Tom ; " I have no quarrel with drink in
moderation. Tell me," he added abruptly, with a twinkle
in his eye, " did you ever see a merry-meeting round a
pump ? "

At one time I was pressed by Father Burke 's sister
Bedilia to write his Life, and for this purpose a number of his
letters were put into my hands. The work was anticipated
by the late Mr. Fitzpatrick, but the letters were not recalled
nor published. I am tempted to give a few extracts here for
the edification of those in whose memory Father Tom lives
only as an eloquent preacher and an unrivalled humorist.
They afford glimpses of the private character and life of the
man — humble, affectionate, devout.

The letters are written to his mother and his sisters. They
are the simple outpourings of a warm heart with no pretence
to grace of style. They were never, of course, intended for
the public, but using the discretion given me by his sister
I venture to extract a passage here and there which may be
published without any indiscreet intrusion on the private
life of the great Dominican.

The first of the series, written from Perugia to his sister
Mary in Galway, is dated as far back as June, 1848. Matters
of private concern and public interest are delightfully
mixed up in the letter. He mentions incidentally that his
" whole worldly wealth consists of twelve shillings," but he
adds, " every day is adding to my size, health and happi-
ness." " Thank God," he writes, " for the splendid flow
of health I am enjoying ; everything agrees with me. The
Italians say my growth is observable after a week. When
we visit the nuns they all exclaim : ' Borgio grew a great
piece since we saw him last ! ' The habit which was too
long in January had to be lengthened in April." Mingled
with private news and inquiries he writes of public affairs :
" We are enjoying a profound peace in the ecclesiastical
state at present. There were some disturbances at Rome,

FATHER TOM BURKE 73

but they are passed, and the temporal sceptre is still wielded
by our immortal pontiff."

The following extract, written, it is always to be remem-
bered, frankly from a brother to a sister, is the earliest
record of success in the pulpit of the greatest Catholic
preacher of his generation.

" My sermon on Holy Thursday gave universal satis-
faction. The deacon, who possesses talents of the first order,
for he is a poet and an orator, made me repeat my discourse
before him several times in his room, so I delivered it before
the convent much better than I expected." The eloquence
of the boy preacher is appropriately rewarded : " On Easter
Sunday/' he writes, " the Superior sent me a dish of most
delicious sweetmeats." " I am nearly six months vested,"
the letter concludes, "and after six months more I will make
the solemn vows of profession. Pray for me that I may
make them with fervour and observe them with religious
fidelity, that becoming a good son of our holy father St.
Dominick, through the protection of my patron the angelic
doctor St. Thomas, I may still remain your most loving
brother, N. A. T. Burke." |

The next letter, written just a year later, in June, 1849,
discloses a wonderful change from tranquillity to feverish
anxiety in the Eternal City.

" These," he writes, " are fearful times in Rome. Troops
are pouring in from all quarters, the enemy are daily drawing
their lines nearer, everyone is armed and daily expecting
the assault. Much blood will flow before the Holy Father
returns. We have not the cholera yet, but being in France
they say it will soon visit Italy. I have heard, but I hope
it is not true, that they have dug a mine under St. Peter's
in order to blow it up if they are driven out. What a crime
that would be against the whole Catholic world ! When I
first entered the great church, I felt as if I were struck dumb
with amazement, my soul was exalted as if endeavouring to
burst the earthly bonds that held it as I gazed on that vast
and wondrous dome."

Mingled with these exciting tidings are eager inquiries for
the local gossip of his native town. " In your answer," he

74 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

writes, " send me all the news you can think of. I read with
eagerness all news of Gal way."

Indeed, Galway is constantly in his thoughts and letters.
On 15 October, 1853, he writes from Woodchester to his
sister Norah, who apparently has just sent him an enormous
cake, that he "no longer delights in sweets," and bids her
send next time instead of a cake " a box of Arran gurnity or
dried ling." " I know that a bit of really well-cured Galway
fish would be quite acceptable to my brothers here, and it
would besides raise ' the ancient citie of the Tribes ' in their
estimation, for what with the miserable specimen of a
Galway man they have in me, and what with the hints and
insinuations of certain gentlemen from Cork and its neigh-
bourhood, I fear their estimate of our great city is a little
below the just standard." So the Galway reputation was
redeemed by a box of ling.

Here is an interesting extract from a letter, written from
Rome on the last day of the year 1856, to his sister
Bridget :

" I fear you will be half vexed with me when I tell you
I never spent so happy, so perfectly happy, a Christmas. I
went to St. Peter's at one o'clock on Christmas night and I
heard matins and High Mass, which began at one and ended
at five. Oh, if you only saw the place lighted up and heard
the music ; you know it is unlike the music of any other time
of the year. The whole object of the finest choir in the
world was to realize Bethlehem to the people's mind.
Consequently the matins, lauds and Mass were a succession of
the most delightful simple airs, such as shepherds would sing
to a little child. Then the choir of angels was also repre-
sented : lovely solos, and now and then a burst of song
from all together with delightful turns and thrills like the
second part of the little Irish melody ' How dear to me the
hour.' Oh, I was so happy, and so sorry when it was all
over. Then at seven I said my three masses at one of the
seven privileged altars of St. Peter's. The first was for Dad,
Mama, Mary and B. B., the second for poor Nano and the
souls of the faithful, the third was for myself, so you see I
was on that blessed morning a good son, a good brother

FATHER TOM BURKE 75

and a good egoist, and now I am a good trumpeter of my
own praise."

In the Lent of 1865 Father Tom Burke sprang into his
full fame as a preacher. All Rome went wild about him.
The church where he preached was thronged to the doors,
the intensity of interest grew at each successive sermon,
until the Pope himself declared him to be the greatest of
Catholic preachers, and the loud vibration of his fame
reached to his own land. This is how that triumphant
success is described in a letter to his sister Bedilia, written
in the May of that year :

" The preaching is all over for the year. You will be glad
to hear that on the whole my Lent in Rome was a success. I
did not expect it , as I have seen other and far cleverer men than
I am break down and fail lamentably. Besides, my coming
after such a man as the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal
Manning, was an ordeal. But God was good to me, as He
always is, and helped me."

But all this is a bit off the line on which these reminiscences
are intended to run. I set out to write about Father Tom
only as a humorist, one of the greatest I have ever known,
and I have been betrayed into a eulogy of the preacher.
Father Tom differed essentially from Father Healy, though
each was supreme in his own line. Father Healy was a wit,
Father Tom was a humorist. The one excelled in flashing
repartee, the other in admirable mimicry and inimitable
story-telling. Father Healy loved best to perform in a
conversational orchestra where he always played first
fiddle, Father Burke was essentially a soloist. He mono-
polized the conversation, but no one ever complained of the
monopoly.

There are two classes of humorists. One who sits at the
feast of humour with funereal voice and aspect, while all
round him the table is in a roar. The other who laughs
with the best, fully relishing the good things which he pro-
vides. To the latter order Father Tom Burke belonged, and
it is on that account all the more difficult to recapture the
humour of his stories . They need, for full enj oyment , the touch
of the vanished hand, the sound of the voice that is still.

76 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

But I am bound to attempt it, though failure be inevitable.
My very first recollection of Father Tom is at a dinner-party
at my father's house, when the conversation turned on the
vagaries of memory and one of the guests, in a somewhat
sentimental fashion, asked Father Tom what was the
earliest recollection of his childhood.

" I remember," replied Father Tom gravely, " when I was
very young, I think I was about six months and four days
at the time, I cannot be sure to the day, but I remember
I was lying in my cradle sucking my big toe ; it was a habit I
had at the time, but I gave it up as I grew older. My mother
came in and chirruped to me, but I took no notice of the
woman ; then she went and put seven pence in coppers on the
chimney-piece and left the room. About ten minutes later
the servantmaid came in. She looked at me and I looked at
her, but she did not seem a bit afraid of me, for she went over
to the chimney-piece and took the seven pence and put them
in her pocket. Well, I remember distinctly thinking, as soon
as I am able to talk I will tell my mother of that maid."

Father Burke seldom told a story in the first person,
generally the imaginary narrator was a Gal way peasant
whose brogue was admirably mimicked. Here is the version
of a quaint old Irish legend which I heard him tell at a big
dinner-party :

"A big, enormous giant got wind of the word beyond in
Scotland of the great name, Finn, our own giant, was making
for himself in this country. The Scotch giant was mad allout
at the talk that was going on all around, and nothing in the
world would please him but to come over and fight Finn.
So over he comes on the Giant's Causeway up in the north,
all as one of ourselves would cross a river on stepping-stones,
and the water nowhere above his knees.

" When Finn heard of his coming he was a good deal dis-
turbed in his mind, for the Scotch giant was five or six times
bigger again than what he himself was.

" ' I'm off for a day,' he said one morning bright and
early to his wife.

" ' Ah, then, what would be bringing you out in the wet
that way ? ' said his wife.

FATHER TOM BURKE 77

" ' Well, I heard tell there is a big omadhaun of a Scotch
giant coming over to fight me and I'd be afeard I'd hurt the
crature, seeing as what he is weak in the head be all accounts.'

" His wife guessed on the mortal minute what was up
with him, but she never let on.

" ' Would it plaze you, astore, to frighten him back to
Scotland again all the way, and no one the worse of it ? '

" ' Could it be done ? ' sez Finn.

" ' If you'll be led be me/ sez his wife, ' it's aisy to do/

" When Finn agreed to her schame she dressed him up in
the baby's clothes and put him sleeping in the bed for a
baby. Then she made two big griddle cakes and set them
to bake be the fire, and an iron griddle within in the middle
of one of them.

" She had hardly done her work when who comes up the
hill but me big bould Scotch giant, and him walking like an
earthquake and a big tree in his fist that he pulled up for a
walking-stick. When he put his head in at the half -door it
darkened all the place.

" ' God save all here/ he sez, for he had learned that much
manners anyways since he had come to Ireland.

" ' God save you kindly/ sez Finn's wife, ' and won't you
step in, me good man ? '

" ' Is the master of the house within ? ' sez the Scotch
giant.

" ' Then he's not/ sez Finn's wife, ' but if you step in and
wait for him he won't be very long now/

" ' I've come over from Scotland to fight him/ sez the
other, very determined like.

' ' Faix, an' it's welcome you are/ sez Finn's wife, letting on
she was delighted with the news. ' Draw down the child's
stool then, and have an air of the fire while you are waiting.
Himsel' will be delighted to meet you ; we had word of your
comin', and it was only yesterday he was sayin' to me he
would be rather baitin' you than aitin' the best dinner that
ever was cooked/

" The Scotch giant wasn't mightily pleased at that, but
Finn in the cradle within began laughin' fit to break his
sides.

78 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" ' What's that, what's that ? ' sez the Scotch giant,
jumping up at the quare sound.

' That/ sez Finn's wife, as she med for the cradle, ' sure,
that's the baby cryin', and me heart's scalded tryin' to plaze
him.'

" ' He's a fine-grown child,' sez the Scotch giant when he
seen the big head of Finn stickin' out from under the
blankets.

"'Fine enagh,' sez Finn's wife; ' musha, go long out
of that with you, sure it's humbuggin' me you are to call
that little grow-badly the like. Sure, Tom Thumb is the
name Finn has on the weeshy, pernickerty little cratereen.'

" Bedad, this took a terrible rise out of the Scotch giant,
thinkin' to himself what the father must be like at all at all.
He jumped up at once from his stool.

" ' I must be goin',' sez he.

" ' An' why ? ' sez she.

" ' I'm in a hurry,' sez he.

" ' Wait till your hurry is over,' sez she.

" ' I can't,' sez he. ' You'll excuse me to your husband,
ma'am,' sez he as polite as you plaze.

" ' You'll have a bit and sup,' sez she, ' after your long
walk ? '

" ' I haven't the time,' sez he.

'"Sure, you wouldn't bring the curse of the house on you,
goin' off that ways ; the cake is ready there be the fire, and
it's time to feed the child, anyways.'

" With that she took up the two griddle cakes that were
bakin' be the fire and gave one of them to Finn in the cradle,
who began munchin' it out of face, and the other with the
iron griddle in it she gave to the Scotch giant.

" The Scotch giant thought it quare food for a baby, and he
was in greater haste than ever to be off before the father
would be back.

" In his hurry he took a hard bite at the cake. Then he
let a roar out of him that near took the roof off the house,
for three of his best teeth cracked off on the griddle.

" ' What's the matter with you ? ' sez Finn's wife, as inno-
cent as you plaze ; ' don't you like your cake, me good man? '

FATHER TOM BURKE 79

" But the Scotch giant never answered her yis, aye or no,
but tore out of the house roarin' meelia murder, and back
with him hot foot over the Causeway to his own country."

" That," concluded Father Tom triumphantly, " was how
Finn bate the big Scotch giant."

" Bravo, Finn ! " shouted an enthusiastic guest.

" It wasn't Finn that won that battle," said the Bishop
of Canea, who happened to be present on the occasion, " it
was Finnesse."

Father Tom always declared he heard this story just as he
told it from a peasant at a cabin fireside in Galway.

Here is another fireside tale : —

" Father Pat," said Darby Fahy, and he took dudeen from
his mouth to say it, " was always a good warrant to do a
good turn to any poor soul that wanted it, so when he saw
ould Bridget Moloney and her heavy basket tryin' to get
through the narrow stile together, he held the basket for
her till she got through.

' Then what have you in the basket, Mrs. Moloney ? '
sez his reverence.

' Crubeens, your reverence/ sez Mrs. Moloney.

" ' And what are you goin' to do with the crubeens ? '
' Ate them, your reverence, of course.'

" ' Then where did you get the crubeens, Mrs. Moloney ? '
sez his reverence again.

" ' Beyand, in the town beyand, your reverence. I sould

a goose and I bought crubeens with the money I got for her.'

' Then that was a quare thing to do, Mrs. Moloney/ sez

his reverence. ' A goose is better aitin' than crubeens any

day.'

' Faix, it's easy seen you did not know that goose, your
reverence.'

" ' And how long did you know her, Mrs. Moloney ? '

" To tell your reverence no lie I met her for the first
time the day I was married, and she was an ould goose
then.' '

A familiar topic of the everyday humorist gets a new
twist in the following story of Father Tom's :—

" Pat Fahy, me brother, was goin' down the road fair and

80 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

aisy to his work when he saw in a field, within a bit from him,
a girl milkin' a cow, and an ould cow be the look of her.
Pat was in no hurry, so he stopped awhile smokin' his pipe
lookin' over the fence. Then all of a suddin a bull comes
rampagin' out of another field straight at the colleen.

" Pat roared meelia murder, and the girl looked round for
a minute, then, if you'll believe me, she went on milkin' the
cow quiet as ever.

" But there was a quarer thing than that happened.
When the rampagin' bull was within twenty yards of the
girl, he stopped short, let down his tail that he had
cocked up, faced right round and ran like a red shank from
the field.

" It was no wonder that Pat was surprised and wanted to
know the rights of the story, so he crossed into the field and
spoke to the girl, who went on milkin' as if nothin' had
happened.

" ' Did you hear me roarin' at you ? ' he said.

" ' Tisn't deaf I am.'

" ' And you seen the bull ? '

" ' Of course I did, why not ? '

" ' And weren't you afeard ? '

" ' Not the laste taste in the world ; sure, it was the bull
that was afeard.'

" ' Then why should the bull be afeard ? '

" ' I was milkin' his mother-in-law.' '

Here is another favourite story of his : —

" Quare things happen in the country sometimes," said
Darby Fahy. " An ould maid was goin' down to the West
of Ireland, and she had with her a rale beautiful parrot in a
cage. Somehow the cage got open and the parrot flew off
with himself into the wilds of Connemara, where the like was
never seen before. He lit down on a gate, and within in the
field there was an old man diggin' potatoes.

" When the decent man saw the parrot sittin' there all
colours of the rainbow, he stuck his spade in the head of a
ridge and came over to have a good look at him.

" While the man was starin' as if the eyes would jump
out of his head, all of a suddin the parrot calls out :

FATHER TOM BURKE 81

" ' Pretty Poll, fine day, fine day.'

" With that the man takes off his hat as polite as you
plaze.

" ' I humbly beg your honour's pardon,' he said, ' faix, I
thought you were some kind of a bird.' '

We are not always grateful to the man who can " gie us
to see oursels as others see us." Father Tom was a super-
lative mimic from whom no one was safe.

The late Cardinal Cullen, one day at a big dinner, good-
humouredly taxed the great Dominican with having
mimicked a prince of the Church.

" Does your Eminence believe I would be guilty of such
a sacrilege ? " expostulated Father Tom.

" I know it," retorted the Cardinal, " and as a penance I
order you to get up and repeat the performance here and
now."

Father Tom, with many protestations, complied. The
imitation was perfect, every little peculiarity of voice and
manner was reproduced. The guests shouted with laughter
and delight. But in three minutes the Cardinal had had
quite enough of it.

" Sit down, sir," he cried testily, " sit down at once ! "

A little later the Cardinal had his revenge. Father Tom,
coming up from Queenstown, encountered in the railway
carriage a bishop, who had just crossed over from America.
They speedily got to be good friends, and on the way up
Father Tom obligingly showed him, through the carriage
window, all the beauties of Ireland, with which, it may be
added, the good bishop was not a little disappointed. Next
day the bishop dined with Cardinal Cullen, and expressed
his disappointment with Ireland.

" But you have seen nothing of Ireland yet," said the
Cardinal.

" I have seen all I wanted to see," retorted the bishop
proudly.

" The Lakes of Killarney ? "

" I have seen them."

" The Giant's Causeway ? "

" I have seen it."

82 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

' The Rock of Cashel, Croagh Patrick, Glendalough ? "

" I have seen them all."

" But how ? " asked the bewildered Cardinal. " I thought
you said you had only just come across ? "

" I arrived in Queenstown yesterday," replied the bishop.
" A most agreeable clergyman showed me all those places
through' the window of the carriage as we travelled up
together to Dublin."

A light broke in on Cardinal Cullen. " That's Father Tom
Burke's doing," he cried, " as sure as fate." He explained
to the bishop he had been made the victim of the famous
Dominican. " I will have him to dinner to-morrow," he
added, " and you can have it out with him."

A man who was present told me that for the first time in
his life he saw Father Tom Burke embarrassed when he was
brought face to face with the bishop whom he had hum-
bugged so shamelessly. But his embarrassment lasted only
three seconds, and before the dinner was half over he and
the bishop were fast friends. When later Father Tom
visited America on his successful mission of refuting Froude's
attack on the Catholic Church and the Irish people, there
was no one from whom he had a warmer welcome than from
the victimized prelate.

CHAPTER IX
CALLED TO THE BAR

Dinners in London — The "Temple Forum" — Irreligious Hindoos — An
inhospitable host — A startling translation — The law library — On the
hazard — The dissipated Four Courts clock — An explosive jest — An
audacious robbery — A highwayman's lawsuit.

THROUGH all the hindering work, variety and fascina-
tion of the Press I still continued to make my way,
slowly but surely, to my ultimate goal — the Bar. I attended
law lectures and debating society, passed examinations and
ate dinners in Dublin and London. The dinners at one of
the London Inns of Court, which in my day were an absolute
essential (since abolished) to a call to the Irish Bar, were a
costly farce. No word of law was ever mentioned at those
dinners ; "to talk shop " was considered the worst of bad
form by the students. It is strange enough that eating
dinners even in Dublin should be insisted on, but that Irish
law students should be compelled to eat dinners in London
was wholly preposterous. The notion was, I presume, that
Irish savages should be mollified by some intercourse with
a superior race.

But though the parents who paid the piper protested
against the London dinners, they were regarded as a good
spree by Irish students. It was my habit, with a few con-
genial friends, to frequent those quaint public-house debating
societies in London, and whatever might be the subject on
the notice paper, we turned it on to Ireland. I remember
with pride we carried a vote in favour of Home Rule in the
" Temple Forum " twenty years before it was carried in the
House of Commons.

83

84 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

We were an impecunious race, we Irish students, and the
half-crown dinner provided at the Middle Temple was to us a
banquet of the gods. The half-pint of wine was a special
attraction. A friend who was keeping terms with me
laboriously arranged that we should have four Indian
students at our table of six. His notion was that, as their
religion forbade them the use of wine, we should have as
compensation for their company their share and our own.
To his intense disgust the mild Hindoos took to their wine
as a cat to cream. Afterwards he professed himself shocked
at the lack of respect they displayed even for the teaching
of " their own confounded false religion."

Only the other day one of the most distinguished of the
Irish judges reminded me of a somewhat embarrassing
experience that overtook us when we were keeping terms in
London. We were dining together at a cheap eating-house
kept by an Italian at which we got a plate of meat for a
shilling, and I had made some way with my dinner when I
noticed that the meat was high. I spoke to my companion,
whose experience up to that had been more fortunate than
mine, and he went on eating. But a moment later he got a
very full-flavoured morsel into his mouth.

Thereupon we held a consultation. Shillings were of
consequence to us in those days, so we nervously appealed
to the waiter to get us something instead of the uneatable
meat. The waiter referred us to the proprietor. The
proprietor heard our appeal to the end in grim silence.
Then he spoke :

" It often happens," he said, " that people come to my
place and call for dinner ; when they have half eaten they
send for me and tell me it is bad and make demand to send
something else, but I — I send for the police."

In due course I passed my final examination and was called
to the Bar. There were fifteen competitors and I was
lucky enough to get " placed," missing the second prize by
only a few marks. I was even more surprised than pleased
by the result, as I had no time to go into training, being
engaged in Press work up to the day of the examination.

My transition from the Press to the Bar was a curious

CALLED TO THE BAR 85

experience. It was at first a transition from excessive
industry to absolute idleness. I took apartments in one
of the big old-fashioned houses in Henrietta Street, once the
residence of Lord Mount joy, donned my brand-new wig and
gown, hung about the Four Courts and waited. I had
passed a good examination in the principle of law, but I was
in blank ignorance of the practice.

The great Palace of Justice, called the " Four Courts/'
stands on the banks of the Liffey with a huge dome
pushing skywards and a huge central hall under the dome.

There are always more barristers than briefs about the
Four Courts. When the legal tyro has put on the wig and
gown it is for the solicitors to put something into his brief
bag. Meanwhile he stays its stomach with books and
newspapers, preserving a decent corpulency, and waits his
chance ; but then he has a good time on the whole while he
is waiting.

The popular picture of the briefless barrister conscious of
his own neglected genius, eating his heart out in moody
impatience, is all a mistake. As a rule he has a much more
modest and accurate estimate of his own powers, and a very
wholesome terror of the first brief. So he bides his time
good-humouredly, and is lucky enough to have the Four
Courts Library to hide in.

The Four Courts law library deserves a word of special
description. The English barrister, I understand, keeps to
his chambers, and when (if ever) the solicitor arrives with the
brief he is interviewed by the barrister's clerk. The Irish
barrister has no chambers and no clerk ; he camps out in the
law library, which is, in fact, the fair or market where
barristers are hired.

Business or no business, he daily robes himself in full
legal toggery, climbs a flight of stairs to the law library,
and takes his place very literally like a cabman on his hazard,
waiting for a fare.

Close to the entrance sat a big man with a big voice. I
never heard elsewhere a voice of such smoothness and
volume. Whether he was specially chosen for this accom-
plishment I cannot say, or how the competitive examination

86 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

was conducted. But certainly it is the one essential accom-
plishment for his post. When any barrister is wanted by a
solicitor for instruction, courts or consultation, this stentor
was appealed to.

Forthwith he sent a name thundering through the utmost
recesses of the library. The call, pleasantly suggestive of
briefs and fees, brought the barrister hurrying to the door.

The library is sacred to barristers : not even solicitors can
pass its portals. But now and again ladies flit through this
gloomy temple of law, gazing at the crowd of men in strange
costume bent over big books or broad papers, with the same
kind of timid curiosity that one regards the animals feeding
in the Zoo.

Apart from its legal advantages the library is a wonderful
place for social and political anecdote and gossip. I trust
some of the stories I have presently to tell will not belie its
reputation. A pleasant atmosphere of social equality and
kindliness pervades the place. The veriest tyro can appeal
in his perplexities to the most eminent leader with the
perfect certainty of courteous and kindly assistance.

Some men display in the library a power of concentrated
attention that is little short of miraculous. Amid the babble
of constant conversation, amid the incessant and stentorian
shouting of names, those men work as composedly as in their
own silent studies, track an intricate line of argument from
authority to authority, or draft a complicated deed in which
a slip might mean to the client the forfeiture of an estate.

But even to the busiest men there are moments of re-
laxation in the library, while to the idle men it is all relaxa-
tion. There are always in winter-time groups gathered
round the fires, and there good stories go the rounds with hit
and parry and counter of lively repartee. No one is safe
and no one is hurt. A frank comradeship and good-humour
that makes offence impossible is the very life of the place.
It was a mistake to call the House of Commons the best
club in Europe. It is only the second best. The Irish
law library is the best : I have been for some time a member
of both and ought to know.

It is not, as has been said, the idle men exclusively that

CALLED TO THE BAR 87

crowd round the library fires. It is a kind of sanctuary for
the Bar leaders pursued by rival solicitors. On one occasion
the most brilliant of Irish advocates, afterwards the most
brilliant of Irish judges, the late Lord Justice FitzGibbon,
was idling pleasantly in the midst of a gossiping group,
where his laugh was the liveliest and his story the best.

In the courts below half a dozen jury cases were in full
swing. A man coming up from the courts was amazed to
see the Nisi Prius leader idling at the library fire.

" Halloa, FitzGibbon," he cried, "how is it you are not
engaged in any of the cases that are on to-day ? "

" My dear fellow," was the calm reply, " I am in all of
them, and I like to be impartial."

Only once in my experience or, I believe, in the experience
of the oldest inhabitant, has the equanimity of the library
been rudely disturbed. There was a junior barrister, son of
the late Judge Keogh, who in spite of occasional eccen-
tricities was treated with indulgent consideration by his
colleagues. He was clever too, and his sense of humour had
a knack of breaking out in startling and unexpected places.

In the centre of the circle of fun and gossip round the
library fire, he stood abstractedly tossing a small parcel
wrapped in brown paper from his right hand to his left.
The motion naturally attracted attention.

" What's that you've got there ? " he was casually asked.

" What a marvellous thing is modern science ! " was the
apparently irrelevant reply.

" What the deuce has modern science to say to it ? "

" You see this little parcel," he showed it for a moment ;
" only think what mighty forces modern science has stored
up in this little handful of matter. It is dynamite. If I
were to drop this little parcel out of my hand on the hearth-
stone " — he began tossing it again and fumbled in his
catch — " it would blow the library and all that are in it
to smithereens."

Thereupon there was a sudden exodus from the library
like black ants from the hill when you drive a spade in.

With a wild shout of laughter that quickened their speed
he dropped his parcel on the hearth.

88 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Nothing happened !

Returning cautiously the intimidated barristers found a
small ink bottle, wrapped in brown paper and quite empty.

In its Central Hall the Four Courts has an institution in
its way as remarkable as the library. It is here that the
profession and the public meet and mingle. This hall is
a huge drum-shaped building ; stone-walled and stone-
floored, with courts opening from its sides and circular
corridors running giddily round the high glass dome which
makes one dizzy to look up at from the floor.

It is here the judges parade at the opening of term in full
judicial toggery, self-conscious, blazing with scarlet and
gold, and to the irreverent suggestive of a circus procession.
It is here that the famous leaders of the profession are on
view, rushing frantically across from court to court, to
address a jury here, to cross-examine a witness there, each
with a big brief bag under his arm and a tail of flustered
solicitors. It is here, too, the crowds come on great
occasions, when some exciting political trial is in progress,
to wait for the verdict. I have seen the hall a circular
sea of heads : I have heard its walls shaken with exultant
cheers.

Round the great circle are arranged marble statues of the
leaders who in other days bustled about the hall. Some of
these are works of art ; others not : the latter are
the most interesting. You can see works of art in any
good gallery. But there is a statue of the great advocate,
Whiteside, in the hall of the Four Courts, of which the
like is to be found nowhere else in the world, a statue
fearfully and wonderfully made ; a tailor's block in white
marble.

There used to be a colossal figure of Justice in the centre
of the hall. But her scales got broken and the malicious
sneered and sniggered. So to " prevent observation " the
Benchers had the poor maimed Justice removed to the
quiet gardens of the Inns of Court, where nursery-maids
and children stroll and play. The Four Courts, they say,
got on very well without her.

But the most conspicuous object in the hall in the old

CALLED TO THE BAR 89

days, and the most interesting, was the clock : a huge clock
with a great brazen face that fronted the entrance and
misled all comers regarding the time. They have got a new
clock there now, a respectable, commonplace, well-conducted
clock, wholly devoid of interest or excitement.

But some years ago the Four Courts clock was famous
for its eccentricity ; a rollicking, dare-devil clock that
went or stopped at its own sweet will, and kept the most
irregular hours. At times it went so fast that it ran into
the middle of next week before it could be brought up.
Then it suffered from reaction and went slow, simply
sauntered along, lagging days behind the times.

The Four Courts clock grew to be a synonym in
Dublin for loose living. To go like the Four Courts clock
was to go to the dogs.

Snarling critics, indeed, declared the clock typical of the
place, and one morning the following lines were found
chalked under it in huge letters on the wall, by a disappointed
suitor, as was supposed, for the authorship was never
claimed : —

The Four Courts Hall a clock displays

Of a portentous size,
That Justice and its devious ways
Most fitly typifies.

Of wheels in wheels it has a lot,

And weights that hang below,
It always strikes when it should not,

And stops when it should go.

Its face conveys a pleasing doubt

To lawyers ever dear,
Its hands, like judges, go about

Two circuits in a year.

And finally, to make it show

Analogy most strong,
It's very often very slow,

And almost always wrong.

This unconscionable and incorrigible clock that could
not tell the truth, even by accident, made a bad end. Its
story might be worked up into a most improving children's
book, one of the series of " Nursery Nightmares," with a

90 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

blood-curdling moral tacked on as a terrible example to
juvenile delinquents.

I am indeed at a loss for a technical word to describe the
crime of which the poor easy-going clock was ultimately
the victim. It was certainly not petty larceny, nor was it
highway robbery, nor burglary, nor obtaining goods under
false pretences, though it partook of the nature of all these
offences. It was a crime sui generis, without precedent or
parallel, never before accomplished and never likely to be
repeated.

It will be no matter for surprise that a clock that turned
day into night and night into day, and totally neglected its
regular exercise, was constantly in the hands of a clock
doctor. It made frequent excursions to the most approved
health resorts in the city, all without avail.

One day at noon, when business was at its briskest in the
Four Courts, and the hall was thronged with pushing
barristers and staring spectators, a huge van with long
ladders on it drew up at the main entrance. A crowd of
workmen in shirt-sleeves and paper caps shoved and
shouldered their way across the hall to the clock. The
ladders were set and the clock was slowly lowered, the
crowd languidly watching the proceeding, believing the
Board of Works was implicated. The workmen staggered
across the hall with the huge weight and hoisted it on to the
van. With much cracking of whip and sliding of iron-shod
hoofs on the slippery pavement the van and its load got
into motion, and the famous Four Courts clock disappeared
— for ever.

It vanished as quietly and completely as a drop of water
that falls into the ocean. Everyone, of course, at first
assumed an authorized removal. A week passed and a
fortnight, and there was still a huge circular hole in the
high wall where the clock had been. At last some careless
inquiry was started. Question led to question, and it was
finally discovered that no one knew anything of the clock ;
no one had directed its removal ; no one had the least
knowledge of its ravishers or their whereabouts. Belated
inquiry never got upon the track. The clock had dis-

FRANK McDoNOUGH, Q.C.

p. go

CALLED TO THE BAR 91

appeared " like water spilt upon the plain, not to be gathered
up again," and to the present hour no light has fallen on the
mystery of its disappearance.

It seems a little curious at first sight why law and levity
should go so often together. Yet it is so. For all its prim
formality there is a good deal of dry humour, conscious or
unconscious, about the law. Its very incongruity is amusing.
It is a sharp-eyed business man masquerading in a costume
of the Middle Ages. For law can never shake itself clear of
the grotesque, worn-out trappings of tradition.

The legal profession is the most conservative of the
professions, unchanging and unchangeable as the Sphinx (to
whom, by the way, it bears an additional resemblance in its
talent for unanswerable conundrums). Beneath its por-
tentous wig of bristling horsehair it frowns reprovingly on
innovation. The motto of the genuine lawyers has ever
been " Nolimus Mutare." If they had their way then,
indeed —

What custom bids in all things we should do,
The rust of antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly piled,
For truth to overpeer.

Now and again, indeed, the legislation comes with a
broom to sweep the cobwebs out of some corner of the
forensic firmament. But the legal spiders are immediately
at work, and soon have the corner comfortably and closely
curtained again. The law of England has kept " broadening
down from precedent to precedent," until at the present
day it is spread out into a wide maze of inexplicable con-
tradiction and confusion. It adopts some old rule — absurd,
perhaps, when it was first created, certainly inapplicable
to our day, and oblivious of ridicule the law follows this rule
to every extremity of injustice or absurdity. At best, it
seeks to evade its authority by subterfuge or fiction. It
never thinks of knocking the tyrant down and walking
straight forward over its prostrate body.

The result is confusion to lawyers and disaster to litigants,
and to onlookers innocent amusement. A wise old lawyer,
Frank McDonagh, Q.C., was looking over my shoulder as I

CHAPTER X
ECHOES OF THE FOUR COURTS

Frank McDonagh, Q.C. — The Nestor of the Bar — His definition of a lie —
Lunch in court — A battle with bullrushes — " I never expected your
lordship could " — The " big Serjeant " — The king of cross-examiners —
A ball of worsted saves a life.

A DIVISION of labour is usually observed in court : jokes
JT\. are provided for the most part by the judges, and
laughter by the counsel. But now and again the fun breaks
out in unexpected places, and witnesses, and even the
parties themselves, provide their contribution to the
general amusement. It may, I think, be fairly assumed
that if law courts are amusing, Irish law courts have their
full share of the fun. I offer no warranty of truth in whole
or part for the stories that follow. Of many I was eye- and
earwitness, others I have only on hearsay, but I am willing
to let them all stand on their own merits. A good story is
none the worse for being seven-eighths invention ; a dull
story is none the better for being all true.

Many a half-forgotten jest and tale linger round the hall
and library of the Four Courts, their echoes growing gradu-
ally fainter as they pass from tongue to ear and from ear to
tongue. I shall here endeavour to catch the dying sounds
and fix them, as in a phonograph, for future hearers.

I shall not assume any authority or exercise any discretion
in regard to those fugitive anecdotes. I shall not attempt
to settle the order of precedent or merit, nor, like a crafty
huxter, put all my best berries on top, but will as an honest
dealer pour them all out higgledy-piggedly before my
readers without any regard to the quality of the fruit or the
garden in which it grew.

Frank McDonagh was one of the most prominent amongst

94

ECHOES OF THE FOUR COURTS 95

the great advocates that graced the Irish Bar when I was
called. He was leading counsel for the defence in the state
trial in Dublin in which Mr. Parnell and a number of his
colleagues, including Mr. Dillon and Mr. Sexton, were,
during the height of the Land League agitation, indicted
before two judges and a special jury on a charge of con-
spiracy. Amongst the other counsels engaged for the
defence were Mr. Samuel Walker, afterwards Lord Chan-
cellor of Ireland, Mr. Peter O'Brien, afterwards Lord Chief
Justice, and Mr. Richard Adams, afterwards County Court
Judge of Limerick. The leader for the prosecution was Mr.
Hugh Law, who also attained the dignity of Lord Chancellor.
Judge Fitzgerald, who presided, was promoted to the
position of a Law Lord.

The result was a disagreement of the jury, the foreman
alone holding out for a conviction. The memory of this
prosecution has been blurred by the more famous London
" Forgeries Commission," as it is called in Ireland, when
Mr. Parnell and his colleagues were put on trial for more
than their lives ; but the result of the Dublin trial, as is
usual in political prosecutions, was firmly to establish the
popularity of the Irish leader, his colleagues and his move-
ment.

The rare illustration of the half-forgotten Dublin trial,
with portraits of the prominent men engaged, cannot fail
to be of interest.

Come first, then, thou wondrous veteran of the Irish
Bar, long since passed from amongst us, who held for forty
years and upwards a leading position in the profession.
Come with courtly gesture, and winning tones, and smile of
blandest courtesy. Tell us once again your own elaborate
and inimitable definition of a lie.

He was, in truth, the Nestor of the Irish Bar, old and
crafty as the Greek diplomat. The scene of the story is his
own study. A consultation is being held in an important
suit. No man more than he loved a consultation ; no man
more than he believed in the venerable adage, " there is
wisdom in counsel." Never was he greater than when in
his own tent he had gathered his legal subordinates round

96 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

him, and while the champagne flowed with lavish hospitality
he arranged the conduct of the campaign — here planned a
dashing incursion into the enemy's territory, there covered
a weakness in the lines of the defence.

On the occasion alluded to the plan of battle was arranged,
every contingency seen and provided for ; one trivial
difficulty alone remained.

" Who," asked the commander in his most dulcet tones,
" who is prepared to prove the handwriting of the testator ? "

" I will do that, sir," said a young managing clerk who, by
reason of his previous knowledge of the case, had been
admitted to the consultation and was eager to distinguish
himself.

" My dear young friend," said the leader, with more than
parental kindness, " you will render an inestimable service,
a service not easily to be forgotten or lightly requited by
the client whom you represent, and the firm who has been
fortunate enough to secure your assistance. But stay," he
added after a moment's reflection, " if my memory serves
me aright you are the young gentleman who, in a previous
motion in this case, in which collusion was suggested, made
an affidavit that you were totally unacquainted with the
testator. Is that so ? "

"I am afraid, sir," stammered out the too zealous
volunteer, "it is."

" In that case, my dear young friend," rejoined the leader,
with unabated suavity, " we will endeavour to dispense
with the service you have so kindly offered on this present
occasion. Will you," he continued persuasively, " will you
allow an old man, older and more experienced than yourself,
though I unaffectedly confess your inferior in ability, one
who will watch your future career with profoundest interest,
to offer you a single word of advice ? Never " — this with
impressing solemnity befitting a high moral principle—
" never swear in a court of justice to anything that can be
proved to be false by a document in the possession of your
opponent, for that would be a lie.''

Never was there a man of suaver manners than our legal
Chesterfield. It was a tradition of the Bar that he could

ECHOES OF THE FOUR COURTS 97

smile insinuatingly at the jury with the back of his head
while cross-examining a refractory witness.

This bland courtesy of manner proved, however, on
occasion to be but the velvet cushion of the tiger's claw, the
silken scabbard of the deadly blade. When swords were
out it was seen at once that he was a master of fence.
His passes were too rapid and too skilful to be parried ;
with him it was " One, two and the third in your
bosom ! "

He was engaged as leader in one of the most celebrated
Irish cases of recent times, celebrated alike for colossal
sums in dispute and for the singular conduct of the parties
concerned. The presiding judge, the late Judge Warren, had
the temerity to enter into duel with the leading counsel.
Disastrous was his defeat.

" Sir," said the judge on one occasion, irritated by a
courteous sarcasm which had requited a discourteous
interruption of his own, " sir, if you imagine you assist the
cause of your client by disrespectful observations to the
Bench, you are much mistaken."

" And, my lord/' was the suave rejoinder, " if your lord-
ship imagines that you sustain the dignity of the Bench by
frivolous and irrelevant interruption of counsel, your lord-
ship is much mistaken."

In the same trial, and between the same persons, another
somewhat amusing incident occurred. Counsel, in his
politest manner, suggested an adjournment for luncheon.
The judge saw his way at once to a dignified revenge for
the stinging sarcasms with which he had been pelted during
the trial, " knowing," as the bard hath it, " that the
last of humiliations is the cutting short of a foeman's
rations."

" Mr. McDonagh," he retorted with frigid dignity, " I
never partake of luncheon, and as I am anxious, in the
interest of the public and the parties, to bring the trial to a
speedy conclusion, I must refuse an adjournment."

" My lord," replied the other in his most dulcet tones, " as
I am not fortunate enough to possess the immunity from
the cravings of weak human nature which your lordship
H

98 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

enjoys, you will, I trust, allow me to partake of luncheon
while the case is in progress."

" Certainly," said the judge, delighted at the prospect of
escaping, even for a short time, from his caustic criticism.

But he reckoned without his host.

" My young friend," said the courtly veteran, turning to
his junior with winning courtesy, " will continue the
examination of this witness with more skill and dexterity
than I could possibly pretend to."

Then he calmly beckoned to a body-servant known as the
" faithful Rooney," by whom he was constantly attended.

A space was cleared of books and papers on the table in
front of the Queen's Counsel's seat. A damask tablecloth
was spread, an elaborate luncheon of many courses, with its
appropriate accompaniment of glass and silver, was pro-
duced from a capacious basket, and the learned counsel
proceeded, with all the deliberate appreciation of the accom-
plished bon-vivant that he was, to the discussion of the
repast. Now he daintily picked a chicken wing, now inter-
posed a question, now sipped his champagne, now dallied
with a jelly, now suggested an objection, now blandly
smiled on the jury, while all the time the unhappy judge
fretted and fumed in impotent fury on the Bench.

No provocation could touch the temper of this embodi-
ment of bland courtesy. Yet he maintained (in theory, at
least) the ancient traditions of the profession, which are com-
memorated in the costume of the Bar. The barrister's gown
has attached to it a lot of eccentric tags and tassels which
are a puzzle to the most experienced wearer. This triangular
tab once supported a purse, and that an ink-horn. This
long flap that falls over the shoulder was a sword-sheath in
the old times, when the Templars were prompter with their
weapons than their tongues. They remain as a memorial of
their former usefulness, like the rudimentary tail in which
the disciples of Darwin find proof that man was originally
a monkey.

Irish barristers of old days were famous duellists. Every
counsel of eminence, from Curran to O'Connell, had " his
man out." The fire-eating Lord Norbury was said to have

ECHOES OF THE FOUR COURTS 99

" shot his way to the Bench." True to those traditions,
this past -master of verbal fence always professed his willing-
ness to exchange the bloodless battle of wit, in which he
was supreme, for more deadly encounters.

I remember reporting a celebrated ejectment case tried
some years ago at Mullingar, in which a noble lord and the
next-of-kin were scrambling for the property of an eccentric,
deceased. The next-of-kin had been fortunate enough to
secure the services of this silken veteran. At the close of a
somewhat protracted argument he was brusquely accused
by the leader of the other side, the late Judge Murphy (who
had just himself concluded a two days' speech), of frivolous
waste of time.

" This," he rejoined, still blandly smiling, though his lips
twitched a little at the corners, " this comes well from my
learned friend after the wilderness of nonsense through
which for the past two days he has compelled us to
wander."

An angry retort from his opponent elicited from him a
courteous suggestion that he was " prepared to meet his
learned friend at any place, at any time and with any
weapons he might be pleased to select."

But his opponent suggested " bullrushes," and the genial
Baron Dowse, who tried the case, interposed good-humour-
edly with, " Gentlemen, if you have blown off sufficient
steam, perhaps you had better proceed with the evidence,"
and so the incident passed off without bloodshed after all.

Indeed, our Chesterfield was, justly or unjustly, credited
with a preference for such bloodless encounters. He was
anxious, whispered malicious gossip, to begin and end his
duels in court.

On one occasion this supposed predilection of his was
broadly hinted at by an irritated junior. With all his
virtues, the veteran was not by any means famous for
loyalty to the junior counsel who happened to be engaged
with him in a case. When anything went wrong it was his
habit to turn to his junior with a gentle but deprecatory
smile and shrug, which said as plain as words to court and
public, " Behold the sad effects of this young man's haste

ioo RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

and ignorance." This mode of treatment was by no means
pleasant, especially when, as was sometimes the case, the
fault was the leader's own.

On one occasion the operation had been performed
repeatedly with anything but a soothing effect on a junior
of consummate ability, who was afterwards raised to the
Bench as Lord Morris, and of whom we shall hear again later
on. His chance of retaliation came at last. The veteran, as
usual blandly defiant, in reply to an attack from the opposing
counsel, openly suggested an adjournment to the " Forty
Acres " for the satisfactory settlement of their dispute.
The suggestion was not adopted.

Turning to his junior, with exquisite self-complacency he
exclaimed, " My dear young friend, that is the way to
talk to those fellows ! "

" Yes," was the reply, and a broad Galway brogue and
a long drawl gave force to the remark, " that is the way to
talk to them, to talk to them, d'y' observe."

There is a rather amusing story of how this great legal
luminary, this man of all others the most cautious and
astute, became the unsuspecting victim of an innocent
artifice on the part of the faithful servant by whom he was
constantly attended. They had made an incursion together
to a fashionable English watering-place in the height of the
season. The master, even as an old man, was, not unjustly,
vain of his personal appearance : of his silver-white hair and
whiskers, his bright blue eyes and complexion, clear as a
young girl's. He paraded the pier in the somewhat theatrical
costume he was wont to affect, a wide expanse of glossy
shirt-front, a narrow blue ribbon knotted at his throat,
and a voluminous cloak enveloping his stately form in its
graceful folds. The servant, by command, attended his
steps at a respectful distance. While the master was
delighted at the attention they attracted, the servant was
desperately bored by the monotony of the performance.
One evening they were alone together, and the master
insisted on being told the gossip of the place concerning him.
The answer was given hesitatingly and with much apparent
reluctance :

SERGEANT ARMSTRONG

"The Big Sergeant."

p. 100

ECHOES OF THE FOUR COURTS 101

" They say, sir, that you are a harmless looney and that
I am your keeper."

Thenceforward the attendance of the servant on the pier
was dispensed with.

Just one more anecdote, and we bid the ghost of Frank
McDonagh a courteous good-bye.

As he was addressing an elaborate and learned argument
to a rather dull judge, to whom he was personally obnoxious,
he was suddenly and rudely interrupted by the Bench
with :

" I must confess, Mr. McDonagh, I do not in the slightest
degree comprehend the force or point of your argument."

The brief was at once laid quietly on the table, the gold-
rimmed spectacles were gently adjusted, and the reply came
low and clear from the smiling lips :

" I never expected that your lordship could, but, in order
that the point might be made in the Court of Appeal, it
was necessary that it should be mentioned before your
lordship."

The great McDonagh had a rival, if rivalry it could be
called, when every quality of mind and manner were
wholly different. Each was master of his weapon. Mr.
Serjeant Armstrong, the " Big Serjeant " as he was
affectionately called at the Bar, was big in body, manner
and mind. He rushed his cases. He went crashing straight
through all obstacles to his object, like an elephant through
a cane brake. In cross-examination, especially, he was
tremendous. This, as every barrister knows, is the most
important accomplishment of all ; for one barrister who
can cross-examine you will find ten who can speak. It is
cross-examination that wins cases. It is cross-examination
that brings the certainty of truth or falsehood home to the
mind of the jury. The most eloquent speech can only
clinch conviction after it is driven home by cross-examina-
tion. From the days of the chaste Susanna and the elders
even to our own time it has " let daylight " through the
most cunning perjurers.

The Big Serjeant was king of cross-examiners. No lie,
however skilfully concealed, however cunningly disguised,

102 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

could elude him. He tracked the guilty perjurer with the
certainty of a sleuth-hound. He did what Hamlet defied
the king's spies to do — he " played " upon him. He seemed
"to know all his stops." He "sounded him from his lowest
note to the top of his compass." He " picked out the heart
of his mystery."

He had a method all his own. He stunned a witness by a
sudden assault, and before he could, as it were, recover
consciousness he plundered him of the truth, however
carefully concealed. Over and over again a case was won
by a single smashing question, breaking through all defence.
It is not easy to give an example, for it is not possible to
depict the sudden intellectual spring, the flashing eye, the
inexorable voice that wrenched the truth from a reluctant
witness.

The following is so poor an illustration of his powers that
I doubt if it is worth repeating. The case turned entirely
on the evidence of a famous expert in handwriting, whose
reputation was of long growth. Now, it happened that
many years ago the Serjeant, when he was a young man,
happened to be present in court when this same witness was
examined, and the judge had declared that he would not
hang a cat on the evidence of such an expert. The Big
Serjeant rose to cross-examine. For a moment he and the
witness stood at gaze. Then sharp and sudden comes the
extraordinary question :

" Is that cat alive yet ? "

The witness, dumbfounded, hesitated for an answer.

The Serjeant pressed him.

He faltered : "I don't understand the question."

The Serjeant refreshed his memory.

He made a weak attempt at evasion.

The Serjeant shook and pushed him straight on. He lost
nerve, grew dizzy and weak under the pelting storm of
questions.

To the jury he had the appearance of striving to shirk
some shameful disclosure. Then the coup de grace was
administered.

" On your oath, sir, did not an eminent judge on one

ECHOES OF THE FOUR COURTS 103

memorable occasion declare he would not hang a cat on
your evidence ? "

The reply sounded to the jury like a confession of guilt, and
the witness slunk from the box utterly discredited.

In another case the Big Serjeant made dramatic use of
an important document.

The Serjeant's client had had his office burnt down, and
three days later he was sued by a solicitor for a large amount
of money which, he protested, he had already paid. The
plaintiff, a most respectable old gentleman, clearly proved
the debt, and the Serjeant rose to cross-examine him.

Without a word he handed the witness a sheet of blue
paper with writing and an obliterated stamp on it.

The witness just glanced at the document, then silently
handed it back to the Serjeant. Still without a word he
took off his spectacles, put them in their case, the case in his
pocket, picked up his hat and began to move unobtrusively
out of the witness-box.

" What's all this, what's all this ? " queried the bewildered
judge.

" Only the gentleman's receipt in full for the amount
claimed," said the Serjeant.

The plaintiff, half out of the witness-box, turned to the
judge with the air of a man who has been cruelly
misled.

" I take my solemn oath, my lord," he said earnestly, " I
never would have brought the action, only I was led to
believe that the receipt was burned."

The Serjeant's tactics did not always succeed. In the
famous Galway Election Petition he had to cross-examine
the venerable and learned Archbishop Dr. McHale, described
by Dan O'Connell as " the Lion of the fold of Judah." The
Serjeant had a little weakness for airing his Latin or Greek
when occasion offered.

' Your Grace," he began, " is, I understand, the/ows et
origo malorum," making the * in origo and the o in malorum
both short.

" Your statement, sir," retorted the learned Archbishop,
" is as false as your quantities."

104 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

A somewhat similar attack on the distinguished Irish
patriot A. M. Sullivan signally failed.

" Tell me, sir," said the Serjeant, opening the assault
in a political case, " who is the greatest firebrand in
Ireland ? "

" Political or legal, Serjeant ? " was the bland rejoinder,
and the Big Serjeant did not think it necessary to pursue
the inquiry farther.

But the most comical instance of his discomfiture
occurred, in my own hearing, when he was leading counsel
for the defence for a railway company in an action brought
by a cattle jobber. The plaintiff, a man of ponderous bulk
and deliberate utterance, was being examined in chief.

" You paid your money ? " said his counsel.

" I did, your honour."

" And you got in return a small piece of coloured paste-
board ? "

" Yis, your honour."

" There was printing on it ? "

" There was, your honour."

The Serjeant began to grow impatient. He hated technical
formalities and thought he saw a chance to ridicule the
plaintiff's case.

The examination continued.

" Did you happen to read the print ? "

" I did, your honour."

" Cut it short," the Serjeant broke in impatiently,
speaking out of his turn. Then to the witness : " You paid
your money and got your ticket, my man, like anybody
else ? "

The man had his spectacles on examining the ticket. He
quietly removed them and put them in his pocket. Then
slowly and ponderously he wheeled round his chair amid
expectant silence and faced the Serjeant at the opposite
side of the court.

" See here, me larned friend," he said in grave rebuke.
" See here, me larned friend, no wan was talkin' to you, and
there was no occasion for you to put in your gab. When
your own time comes you can ax what questions you plaze,

ECHOES OF THE FOUR COURTS 105

an' I'll answer them quick enough. But you'll be plazed to
howld your tongue for the prisent."

He wheeled his chair round again and faced his own
counsel.

" Never heed him, your honour/' he said encouragingly ;
" go on as you were going."

For once the Serjeant was completely dumbfounded.
Technically the witness was clearly in the right and he was
in the wrong. A moment later he joined in the roar of
laughter that shook the court and which the laughing judge
had no power to rebuke.

The Serjeant's speeches were strong, plain and inornate,
but now and again relieved by a gleam of grim humour. He
was prosecuting in the Fenian times in a great political case
which had Dublin in a ferment and filled the courts and hall
with eager crowds. Isaac Butt, the greatest lawyer and
advocate of his generation, of whom I shall have something
to say presently, delivered a speech of thrilling eloquence
for the defence.

The Serjeant rose to reply : "I have listened," he said,
" with profound interest to the speech of my learned friend,
which I am sure will give delight to the class for which it
was intended. Many men are to-day hanging on his words,
and many may hereafter hang for them."

A curious and, to my thinking, a striking story of one of
the Big Serjeant's first successes may fitly close this in-
adequate notice of one of the giants of the Irish Bar.

He was engaged to defend a boy of about thirteen accused
of the murder of a boy of nine years on what appeared
conclusive circumstantial evidence. The two had been seen
together early in the day ; later the younger boy was found
in a bog-hole with his throat cut. When the elder boy was
arrested there was blood on his hands and clothes, and he
had in his possession a bloodstained penknife and a ball of
grey worsted. The mother of the murdered boy swore
that she believed that the penknife was her son's. Of the
worsted ball she was quite certain, as she had herself made
it for her son and given it to him that morning. The accused
confessed to his own solicitor that he had taken the ball

io6 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

and knife from the child, but resolutely denied the murder.
He had last seen the deceased, he swore, on the roadside,
crying. The Serjeant (he was not Serjeant then, but a
briefless junior) thought a defence on those lines too danger-
ous to be undertaken.

He endeavoured by dexterous cross-examination, success-
ful as far as the knife was concerned, to shake the mother's
identification. But in regard to the ball she was positive,
and plainly carried with her the conviction of the jury. She
could not be mistaken, she swore, she had wound the ball
herself from the thread of an old stocking on a pellet of
brown paper. Counsel was completely nonplussed, and at
the same moment, as if to complete his dismay, his solicitor
whispered, " The woman is right. The boy told me he
unwound the worsted from the brown paper and threw it
away, and rewound the worsted on a bit of cork he picked
up on the road."

To his amazement he was bade in a fierce whisper,
" Hold your tongue and our client is safe."

The future leader of the Bar saw his chance, and took it.
He vigorously resumed his cross-examination concerning
the ball. Every question seemed to make certainty more
certain, to drive the nails, as it were, into the gallows from
which his client was to swing. But every question was
artfully framed to rivet attention on the bit of brown paper.
Over and over again the witness was brought back to that
point, and never wavered in her evidence. At last the
crafty counsel thought the situation ripe for his final effort.

" My lord," he said gravely, " there is a crucial test on
which I am willing to stake the life of my client. The woman
swears that the ball she gave her son was wound on a pellet
of brown paper. I ask, my lord, that the ball found on the
prisoner shall be unwound in court."

There was, of course, no refusing the request. The ball
was produced, and at the counsel's request handed up to
the jury box, with the loosened end of the thread hanging
down into the court. Counsel began rapidly to wind it on a
spill of paper torn from his brief, and the ball whirled and
danced in the palm of the foreman, growing small by degrees

ECHOES OF THE FOUR COURTS 107

and beautifully less. One can fancy the intensity of the
excitement in court. When at last a fragment of cork was
held up between the finger and thumb of the foreman the
verdict of " Not Guilty " was secured, and the reputation of
the defending counsel established.

CHAPTER XI

BAR AND BENCH

A white-headed junior — A " play " or a farce — One for the judge — A vision
of glory — Isaac Butt — His acknowledged supremacy — " Have a half
one ! " — Mistaken for a cardinal — Baron Dowse — " A stake in the
country " — To " ride a Greek goat."

POOR Fraser died an old man, but he was a " junior " to
the last ; for his brain was fashioned rather in the
mould of Yorick than Polonius.

His flashes of merriment were wont to set the court in a
roar ; but unhappily for his success at the Bar it was never
quite certain to which side the laughter would turn. His
was, in truth, an unruly tongue and subject to no restraint.
He ridiculed his own side or his opponents, or both, with the
most charming impartiality, and as often as not he laughed
his client out of court. So it came to pass that " old
Fraser," when I first knew him, I won't say how many
years ago, was a white-haired junior with the gay spirits of
a boy.

On what might be called ornamental occasions he was
inimitable. Even at serious functions a speech from him
was regarded as essential as the sparkling of the champagne
on the dinner- table. Now and again a single word, in his
own quaint, dry style, set laughter loose. He would con-
gratulate some ponderous speaker on " his exhaustive —
(and exhausting) — oration," or some blunderer on " the
charming (if unconscious) humour that lent gaiety to the
proceedings."

On one occasion he appeared in court to set aside a plea.
His opponent, who spoke with the broadest brogue, waxed
eloquent on the subject of the proposed plea.

"It is a good play," he earnestly assured the court,

108

BAR AND BENCH 109

" an' a regular play ; a play founded on fact and necessary
for the proper trial of the action."

Then Eraser's turn came.

"What have you to say to all this ? " queried the judge.

" But one sentence, my lord. ' The play,' as my learned
friend is pleased to call it, is a mere farce."

He was quite oblivious of the golden rule (the guinea
golden rule) that the function of the counsel, especially of a
junior counsel, is to laugh with the judge, not at him. The
Bench did not always escape his frolicsome raillery.

A somewhat irritable judge cut him short in the middle
of a law argument, thickly interwoven with flowers of
fancy, by the impatient exclamation :

" I have done my best, Mr. Eraser, but I fail to understand
a single word of your notice of motion."

" Not a single word, my lord ? That is really most
lamentable. Will you please permit me, to the extent of
my limited ability, to explain it to your lordship? "

He read the notice over with laborious exactitude.

" Sir, — Take notice that on the 20 th day of May, or on the
first opportunity afterwards, counsel on behalf of the
plaintiff in this action will apply to this honourable court
for an order that " etc.

" Now, my lord, to proceed with my explanation : ' Sir '
— that, my lord, is the mode of monosyllabic address used
by the solicitor of the plaintiff to the solicitor for the other
side. It is curt, my lord, as the form provides, and indicates
that the parties are now at arm's length, but it is not
necessarily discourteous, nor precluding the possibility of
friendly private relations between the solicitors. ' Take
notice ' — this, your lordship will observe, is in the nature of
a warning ;.. the object is that the solicitor shall be prepared
for the application, and above all that he shall have an
opportunity to instruct and fee counsel to resist the motion
if he considers it possible or advisable, or otherwise, to appear
and consent to the order. ' On the 20th day of May ' — a
day now past, my lord, and therefore unavailable for the
making of this motion — ' or the first opportunity afterwards '
— that, my lord, is the present occasion — ' counsel on behalf

no RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

of the plaintiff ' — that is the humble individual who appears
before your lordship — ' will apply to this honourable
court ' — that is the learned and courteous judge whom I
have the honour to address — ' for an order '—that, my
lord "

But the judge could not refrain any longer :

" Go on with your motion," he said, joining in the general
laughter, " I have learned my lesson."

He loved to startle the court out of its decorum by some
amazingly incongruous retort — burlesque disguised in the
profoundest gravity. One day he had been engaged in
what, for anyone else, would have been a dry law argument ;
but for him it was a series of incongruous and amusing
quibbles. He had a contempt for authority. He spun his
arguments from his own whimsical brain, turned the cases
topsy-turvy, and utterly bewildered the judge.

Human patience, or at least judicial patience, could stand
it no longer.

" Will you kindly tell me," the judge broke out, " if you
have any authority for your contention ? "

Counsel was at once startled into directness.

" Yes, my lord, the point has been expressly decided by
your lordship's court."

" Decided by this court ? Why did you not mention that
before ? Was the court constituted then as now ? "

Old Fraser laid his brief on the table, adjusted his
spectacles, and looking the bewildered judge solemnly in
the face he addressed him in tones of supernatural gravity :

" No, my lord. Since the not distant day when the
momentous decision was pronounced, two of your lordship's
venerable and venerated predecessors on that seat of
justice have departed from this scene of terrestrial sorrow
to regions of heavenly glory. There, seated on thrones of
gold, and clad in robes of spotless white, they sing ever-
lasting hallelujahs in a never-ending chorus, which blissful
society, I trust, it will be long before your lordship is called
upon to join."

The man of whom I now come to write was the greatest
man the Irish Bar has known since the days ol O'Connell.

BAR AND BENCH in

He stood head and shoulders over the giants of his own
generation. I have hesitated whether I should introduce at
all into these rambling reminiscences this great figure in
whose strange career the pathos overpowers the humour.
But in any account of the men whom I have seen and
heard, the greatest Irish lawyer, orator and statesman of
his day must hold a place.

Of Isaac Butt's supremacy there was never any dispute ;
in the most emulous of all professions he had no rival.

I was present at the Parnell Commission when Sir Charles
Russell dropped a paper which the then Sir Henry James
picked up and handed to him.

" Thanks ! Where did you find it ? " asked Sir Charles.

" Where we all are, Sir Charles — at your feet," was the
courtly reply.

The whole Irish Bar, and I may add the whole Irish Bench
as well, were at Butt's feet. He was the one man to whom
all, however they differed on other things, conceded the
supreme praise of genius. Nor was it in this department or
that, but in all that he excelled. In a law argument he
would convince or confound the judges ; in a speech he
would capture the most prejudiced jury. In cross-examina-
tion he would coax or compel (generally coax) the truth
from the most adroit and the most reluctant witness.

His career at the Bar and in Parliament was the most
brilliant success or the most absolute failure, according to
the point of view from which it is regarded. He leaped at
once into position and reputation. In six years he passed
from the outer to the inner Bar. As quite a young man he
was selected as the Conservative champion in a discussion on
Repeal with O'Connell, and even " the Liberator " found
in him a foeman worthy of his steel.

It was not a little curious that he himself, as O'Connell
then prophesied, should subsequently become the founder
and the leader of the movement for Home Rule ; the pro-
pounder of a new Irish policy ; the chief of a new Irish
party.

All I have written of the greatest of Irish advocates and
politicians sounds remarkably like success, yet ninety-nine

H2 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

men out of a hundred would pronounce his career an absolute
failure. A great barrister, he never attained to the Bench ;
a great Parliamentarian, he never attained power. Even
his unofficial leadership of the Home Rule party was wrested
from him before he died. To the strength of a giant he
joined the amiable weaknesses of a child. He was Irish
all over, intensely Irish alike in his qualities and his defects.
If one could imagine the most genial, thoughtless, reckless of
Charles Lever's heroes, gifted with eloquence, statesman-
ship and genius, one could realize the strange combination
of his character. In the practical matters of everyday life
he was a baby. He earned money ; he could not help
earning it, for solicitors, wise in their generation, forced
their briefs and fees on him. But he could not hold it. It
slipped from his fingers like a full handful of canary seed
in a hundred unnoticed little trickles. I have known him
to borrow half a sovereign from a friend and hand it straight
over to a cabman for a sixpenny drive.

In appearance and manner also there was this quaint com-
bination of the giant and the child. He had a grand head,
massive and leonine and, when I knew him, thickly thatched
with hair, silver- white. But he had withal the fresh
complexion, the beaming blue eyes and the frank smile of
a boy.

It was his habit in court to argue his cases twirling the
open blade of his penknife between his finger and thumb.
In his address to the jury he had but one gesture, a vigorous
sledge-hammer motion, by which he seemed, as it were,
to drive his arguments home.

In social life his manner had the charm of perfect sim-
plicity. Whatever he talked about, or with whomever he
talked, he was always bright, eager and absolutely free
from self-consciousness.

He has been, not inaptly, described as the Irish Gladstone.
If one may touch for half a second on politics, it is surely not
without significance that the most gifted Irishman and
Englishman of their generation were absolutely in accord
on the policy that was best for the two countries.

I had frequently reported Butt when on the Press. The

BAR AND BENCH 113

occasion that dwells most clearly in my recollection was a
great open-air Home Rule demonstration. The weather
was awful. The rain came down in a perpetual, unceasing
splash, like water from a hose, and Butt, an old man even
then, stood — his white head bare — under the deluge and
spoke for an hour to the patient crowd.

The reporters, seated round him in a waggonette, had a
terrible time of it. Our notebooks were reduced to pulp,
and any attempt at note-taking was impossible, the pencil
point went clean through to the cover. A good memory
alone enabled me to get a reasonable summary of the speech
into the paper. It was good enough, anyway, to please the
orator, one of the kindliest and most easily contented of
men. Some days afterwards I had the luck to sit beside
him at a dinner in a small country town. He said some
kind words — he was always saying kind words — about the
report, and I ventured to ask him how he escaped with his
life from the drenching he received.

" I had two tumblers full of hot whiskey punch at my
dinner, and two more after it/' he said, " and I awoke next
morning as well and hearty as ever I felt in my life."

Later on, at the close of his career, I came to know him
at the Bar. He had a fascinating way of treating the
merest junior as an equal, and many an amusing story I
had from those kindly lips, of which the following serves as
a sample. Our talk turned on the modern custom of dram-
drinking, in contrast with the good old times when every
man took his couple of bottles after dinner and nothing
before it.

" I was engaged," said Butt, " in a case of great impor-
tance and intricacy in Belfast. To keep my brain in working
trim I got up early and set out for a walk through the city
in the cool grey of the morning. I had not gone far when
I met a linen manufacturer in a large way of business, whom
I had always regarded as one of the most staid and respect-
able of men.

' Good morning/ he said, ' it is not often we see you in
Belfast, Mr. Butt. Out for your constitutional ? So am I ;
let us have it together/

H4 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" ' All right/ said I, thinking he meant a walk, but he
walked me straight across the street, through the open door
of a bar of a public-house, called for two half -glasses of
whiskey, and tossed his own allowance down his throat by
way of good example, which courtesy compelled me to
follow.

" I escaped from him as quickly as I could, but was in turn
waylaid by an eminent contractor and shipbuilder and
subjected to the same hospitality.

" My next encounter was with a solicitor, and, of course,
I could not resist his bland invitation to ' a half one/ A
doctor button-holed me next. I was not frightened of him
at first. I relied for protection on medical science, but I
quickly discovered my mistake.

" ' There is a general prejudice/ he broke out irrelevantly,
for I was talking about the weather, ' there is a general
prejudice shared, I regret to say, by many members of my
own profession, against alcoholic stimulant in the early
morning. It is a complete mistake, my dear sir; gentle
alcoholic stimulant improves the appetite, promotes digestion
and, judiciously renewed, fortifies the constitution against
the fatigues of the day. Come and have a half one ! '
So we had it.

" When he left me I began to reflect. The thing was
getting serious. I had now had five half ones, and let me
tell you, in spite of arithmetic, two half ones are more than
one whole one. If this went on I would be drunk before
breakfast in the streets of Belfast. I had just come to the
desperate conclusion to stoop my head and run, looking
neither right nor left, straight back to my hotel, when,
with one final glance round, I found salvation.

" Right over the way I saw the then Moderator of the
Presbyterian Church, a most venerable man with whom I
had the honour of acquaintance. ' Here's my chance/ I said
to myself. * I will get into talk with him. I will lure him
to walk in the direction of my hotel. Under his convoy no
one will dare to be guilty of the profanity of asking me " to
come and have a half one."

" The plot prospered. He expressed himself pleased to

BAR AND BENCH 115

meet me, and presently in a profound theological discussion
we began to walk sedately together in the direction of my
hotel.

" Presently he broke off a long Scriptural quotation with
a shiver and a muttered exclamation, 'It's a very chill
morning/

" ' Oh, bad luck to you/ I said in my own mind, ' is that
what you are at too ! '

" I guessed what was coming, and it came.

'"In my position/ he said softly, ' I am bound to be very
careful to avoid scandal to the weak-kneed brethren, but
there is a discreet little place round the corner where you
and I will have a quiet half one/

" I turned and fled as swiftly and as steadily as I was
able, and never trusted myself loose in those streets again.

" If I met the Archbishop of Westminster or the Pope of
Rome in the streets of Belfast, the first words I'd expect to
hear would be, ' Come and have a half one ! ' "

It chanced, when Butt was at his prime, that the Com-
mander of the Forces in Ireland was a Catholic ; an able
man, courteous and popular, but a great stickler for
ceremonial and decorum.

Now the Commander deemed it his duty at the very
earliest date to pay his respects to Cardinal Cullen, prince
of the Catholic Church, then resident in Dublin. Early in
the afternoon he arrived in Eccles Street, a street of great
roomy, old-fashioned houses, where the Cardinal resided,
within a few doors of the popular lawyer and politician.

He knocked at the door, which was opened by a somewhat
slatternly maidservant.

" Is his Eminence at home ? "

" His Eminence ! I suppose it's the master you mean ? "

' Yes, the master."

" Well, he's in, you see, but he's not up yet."

" Not up yet ? "

" He was very late last night, or morning it was."

" Oh, I see ! "

He had a vision of a venerable old man burning the mid-
night oil in profound theological studies.

n6 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

The servant interrupted : " You can wait for him if you
want to."

" I won't disturb him ? "

" Indeed, and you won't. He was coming down presently,
and he never takes any breakfast worth speaking about
after a night of it."

As she spoke she turned the handle of a door and ushered
the distinguished visitor into a room lined and littered with
books. The fume of tobacco-smoke and whiskey punch was
heavy in the air ; the decanters were still on the corner
table flanked by a big box of choice cigars ; half a dozen
packs of cards were strewn on the ground.

" They were playing up to near four in the morning," the
servant confidentially explained. " I think master lost ; he
mostly always loses. I'll take this to him directly."

Exit with card between her finger-tips.

Almost immediately a burly figure, an old man in red
dressing-gown and slippers and very little else, came bustling
into the room.

" Delighted to see you ! "

The genial face, the kindly voice, the outstretched hand of
welcome were wholly irresistible.

The Commander of the Forces shook hands as in a dream.
" Sit down, won't you ? " — with a sweep the strong hand
sent a pile of books sliding from an easy chair on to the
floor, and the Commander of the Forces sat down.

Before he had recovered himself he was in the middle of
a delightful conversation. He was amazed at the breadth
of view and brilliancy of his eccentric entertainer. Intelli-
gence conquered decorum, and he gave himself up to the
fascination of this inimitable talker. All kinds of questions —
social, military, religious and political — were touched upon
with the skill of a master. It specially surprised the Com-
mander to hear Home Rule so earnestly advocated by the
Cardinal, whom he had heard was strongly opposed to it.

An hour and a second hour went by. The Commander rose
surprised and confused at the length of his visit.

" I fear," he began, " I have trespassed intolerably on
your Eminence."

Photo by Chancellor and Sen, Dublin.

BARON DOWSE

p. 116

BAR AND BENCH 117

" My what ? "

" Your Eminence."

" Eminence be hanged ! " was the startling rejoinder.
" What do you mean by that ? " Then the mistake dawned
on him suddenly, and he shouted and shook with laughter.
" So you have been talking to the Cardinal all this time ! " he
gasped out at last. " Should he feel flattered, I wonder, or
I ? Sit down, man, sit down again. You must have your
bit of lunch with my real self to make up for it. It will be
breakfast for ' his Eminence/ and we will have our talk out
on an easier footing."

The Commander of the Forces was wont to declare he
never before or afterwards enjoyed a lunch so much.
The irresistible charm of Butt's manner quite captured
him.

Baron Dowse, as I remember him, was one of the wittiest
of men. He and laughter were sworn brothers, always
together. At the Bar in the House of Commons and on the
Bench he bubbled over with humour, and he left a trail of
bright sayings behind him. For years he was acknow-
ledged the leading humorist in the House of Commons,
where he sat as Attorney-General in one of Gladstone's
administrations.

Those that knew him well declared that humour was
born with him, that the law student was as brilliant as the
Attorney-General and the judge. When the Baron was
keeping his terms in London as a student, he occasionally,
like the rest of us, dropped into the " Temple Forum " for
a drink and a debate. I found this story there thirty years
afterwards, told to me by a hoary-headed patriarch to the
accompaniment of two Irish whiskies hot, and brought it
home with me to Dublin.

I do not know what was the subject set for the debate on
that distant night, when the brilliant young law student
from Ireland intervened, but the subject, whatever it was,
had come round, as it had a habit of doing in my own day,
to an animated discussion of the wrongs of Ireland. A
venerable Englishman delivered a superior-person style of
speech on the subject, intensely irritating to the quick-

u8 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

tempered young Irish student, who replied when his chance
came with a broadside of ridicule.

Stung by the shouts of laughter that followed each shot,
as report follows the flash, a friend of the first orator
indignantly rose to what he called " a point of order/* and
demanded that " the young Milesian should be compelled
to respect the grey hairs of the previous speaker."

The retort was instantaneous. "I am as willing as any
man, Mr. Speaker," said young Dowse, " to respect grey
hairs in their proper place. But I cannot forget that grey
hairs grow on the head of a donkey as well as on the head of
a man."

As an advocate Dowse was irresistible. He was leading
counsel for the defence in a case in which a wealthy employer
was sued for damages by an injured employee. After the
accident, but before the action, the employer had shown
himself exceedingly generous and considerate. He had
secured the best surgical assistance for the injured man, and
liberally provided for the support of his family.

But when the action was brought he instantly repudiated
all responsibility for the injuries.

Counsel for the plaintiff naturally relied on the defendant's
previous conduct as a tacit confession that he was responsible.
The counsel for the defence was splendidly indignant at
the suggestion.

" People of this kind," he said, " would have brought an
action for damages against the Good Samaritan in the
Gospel, and would have argued that the oil and the wine
and the twopence were conclusive evidence of his legal
liability."

To recapitulate his after-dinner jokes would be to write
a new jest book, before which Joe Miller would pale his
ineffectual fires. Unhappily, I have only one or two
samples to offer.

There was present in the company at the judge's dinner
circuit a very corpulent pseudo-patriotic barrister, a man
of ponderous presence and wondrous breadth of beam.
He had begun to ventilate some startling theories of his
own on the Irish Land Question. The land, he thought,

BAR AND BENCH 119

should be taken by the State from the present owners,
landlord or tenant, and divided amongst the professional
classes as the most intelligent of the community.

The bluff Baron had listened for some time with good-
humoured amusement ; at length he burst out :

" Now I really wonder at you to ventilate such doctrines.
If it had been a lean, lank, lantern-jawed greyhound of a
politician I could understand it. But you, a solid, sub-
stantial man with a pair of gold spectacles and a stake in
the country ! "

" I have no stake in the country, Baron," interrupted the
barrister warmly.

" Oh, you have/* retorted the Baron without a moment's
hesitation ; " you have a rump steak, at any rate."

Late in the evening the same barrister, unsubdued by his
previous disaster, was vapouring about the active part he
was prepared to take in event of an insurrection. He would
be found, he said, facing the enemies of his country.

" Oh, no, you wouldn't," exclaimed the Baron. " You
have too much sense and too much discretion. You would
show the enemy the steak you have in the country."

But it was as a judge I knew him best, and it was as a judge
that I had most opportunity of appreciating his humour.
There was at the time, practising in the Four Courts, a
middle-aged, muddled-headed Queen's Counsel who shall
be nameless. The tradition in the law library was that
when he was engaged in an intricate case he took a row of
Reports at random from a shelf and read them at random in
the courts. He was the delight of Baron Dowse.

" That is a very interesting case," the Baron would say,
" but has nothing whatever to do with the point before the
court."

" Quite so, my lord, quite so," the other would reply,
with undisturbed equanimity ; " but as an interesting case
I thought your lordship would wish to have it on your
notes."

On one occasion I was present in court when this same
barrister moved to set aside a count in a pleading, a form
of motion common enough in those days.

120 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" But on what ground do you move ? " asked the Baron.

" The count is unintelligible/' growled the advocate.

" Not to me," objected the Baron ; " it appears perfectly
plain/'

" My lord," was the reply, " if your lordship bears with
me patiently for ten minutes I confidently undertake to
make it as unintelligible to your lordship as it is to myself/'

" No man more competent for the task," cried the
delighted Baron, and the moon-faced counsel beamed in
self -satisfied appreciation of the compliment.

Sometimes, though rarely, the Baron's humour missed
the mark. In a time of great political excitement he
happened to be going Judge of Assize on the Connaught
circuit on which I practised, and in the assize town of
Castlebar he found himself baffled more than once in attempts
to secure conviction in cases in which the evidence to him
appeared to be conclusive.

The counsel for the defence in those cases — Mr. Charles
O'Malley, locally known as " the Counsellor " — had a
special advantage with the jury of his town. He was a
barrister only during circuit, and a farmer during the rest of
the year. Living, as he did, in the neighbourhood of the
assize town, the men whom he met at the fair and market
as brother farmers he met in the court as jurors. They
knew the Counsellor to be a straightforward farmer,
and they trusted him to be an honest advocate. He had
a formula that never failed : " Gentlemen of the jury, you
know me and I know you this many a year, and I'm sure
you will take my word for the innocence of my client." —
They did.

The repetition of this performance told on the temper of
the Baron. In one specially clear case he let himself go.

" Gentlemen of the jury," he said, " in this case four
perfectly respectable witnesses, whose evidence has not
been impeached, and who were admittedly present on the
occasion, swore they saw the prisoner at the bar commit
the assault. On the other hand, counsel for the defence, who
was not there, and who knew nothing about the case until
he got his brief and fee in this town, tells you his client is

BAR AND BENCH 121

innocent. It is for you to say which statement you
believe."

They believed the Counsellor, of course, and acquitted
the prisoner without leaving the box.

" I knew," the Counsellor proudly explained to his
colleagues in the Bar room, " that when he questioned my
credit I was sure of my verdict."

Baron Dowse took his defeat good-humouredly. When
later on he had occasion to speak of the disturbed and
dangerous condition of the country, " There appears to me,"
he said, "to be only one place in all Mayo where a man is
absolutely safe, and that's in the dock in Castlebar." ,

The genial Baron was sometimes a little sharp on the
class of magistrates popularly — or unpopularly — known as
" the Removables " in the Coercion days in Ireland. On
one occasion when a Nationalist Member of Parliament,
the famous Dr. Tanner, offended the Removables, an
elaborate warrant for his committal for contempt of court,
ready drawn for the emergency, was instantly produced,
and he was forthwith bundled off to jail.

" They came," remarked the Baron, before whom the case
was heard on appeal, " they came with their ammunition
ready."

The prosecuting counsel suggested that the Removables
drew up the warrant without assistance.

" You might as well," interjected the Baron, " expect
them to write a Greek ode."

Next day the words read in the newspapers " ride a
Greek goat," and the Baron laughingly declared that the
reporters had expressed his views more pointedly than
himself,

CHAPTER XII
LAW AND LEVITY

" Mickey " Morris — His way with a jury — " I yield to no man in my
ignorance " — Only the waiters — " A little difficulty about that " —
Judge Murphy — Innocent boys — The story of the Cock and Bull —
" Where's the ' sportavit ' ? "

ERD MORRIS, affectionately known as "Mickey," who
was Chief Justice of Ireland and afterwards Law Lord
of England, was pre-eminently Irish and proud of his race,
characteristics that are preserved and enhanced in his
eldest son and successor, Lord Killinin.

He was an Irishman first and a Unionist a long way after-
wards. If he could have been convinced that Home Rule
was the best thing for Ireland, he would, I am sure, have
become a Home Ruler instantly, without any special regard
for the interests of the predominant partner.

A long residence in England had not engendered in him
an " electro-plated English accent/' While London society
scrambled for the pleasure of his company he grew daily
more aggressively Irish.

In a former chapter I told of his ready and audacious
retort as a junior counsel on his " silken senior/' The
same readiness, ability and audacity stood the same junior
counsel in good stead in his subsequent career. From a
leading position at the Bar he leaped clean over the heads of
his seniors on to the judicial Bench, and he even contrived
to move up on the Bench itself after he got there.

As a jury judge he was unrivalled. He could bring
jurors to endorse any view of a case he had himself
adopted. On these occasions there was a kind of electric
sympathy between the Bench and the jury box, for the
judge was a kind of glorified juror himself. In his sound
common sense, his unaffected plainness of language, his
broad brogue and his rough and racy humour was to be

122

Photo by Lafayette Ltd., Dublin.

LORD MORRIS

One time Chief Justice of Common Pleas, Ireland.

p. 122

LAW AND LEVITY 123

found the secret of his success. Let me cite, by way of
illustration, a passage from one of his charges in a case in
which I appeared for the unfortunate accused.

A prisoner was being tried by him in the West of Ireland
for assault. Two independent witnesses had seen the
assault committed and identified the prisoner. The prose-
cutor's appearance in the box with his head bandaged and
his face disfigured gave demonstrative evidence of the
injury he had received. Having absolutely no defence, I
cross-examined the witness in what may be termed the
" common form " in these cases, as to the number of public-
houses he had visited, and the amount of drink he had
imbibed previous to the beating.

Then the judge came to the charge.

" Gentlemen of the jury," he said in his own rich Doric
brogue, " there are two courses, d' y' observe, adopted by
counsel in defence of a prisoner. The first is when he has any
case at all, when he has any evidence at all in favour of his
client, he endeavours to convince the jury, d' y* observe,
to convince the jury ; but when he has no case at all, when
the evidence is all the one way, and the guilt of his client is
as plain, d' y' see, as the nose on his face, and no one
except a fool or a juror could be expected to doubt it,
counsel endeavours to obfusticate the jury. In this case the
counsel does not venture to suggest that the prosecutor
beat his own head for the fun of the thing. But it is
urged as a defence that at the time he was beaten the
prosecutor was drunk. Now, gentlemen, the facts of the
case are for you, but you are to take the law from me, and
it is my duty to tell you as a matter of law, d' y' observe,
as a matter of dry law, that even if a man does go home
drunk, his drunkenness does not constitute such an equity
against him as would entitle anyone who meets him on his
way home to beat him on the head with a blackthorn/'

In a sheep-stealing case tried before him the offence was
plainly proved, but a number of witnesses were called to
depose to the good character of the accused. He summed
up in a single sentence :

" In this case, gentlemen, the result of the evidence

124 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

appears to be that the sheep were stolen by a man of most
excellent character/'

" My lord," said counsel in an intricate sanitary case, " I
assume that your lordship is fully acquainted with the
statutes and the authorities?"

" Assume nothing of the kind, if you please," was the
startling reply ; " I yield to no man in my ignorance of
sanitary law."

His illustration of circumstantial evidence is worth
recalling. " Gentlemen of the jury," he said, " I'm afraid
you may be puzzled by the long word ' circumstantial '
which counsel has used so often, so I'll try to explain to you
what it means. If, for example, you saw a man going into
a public-house and five minutes later you saw him coming
out again wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, that
would be circumstantial evidence that he was after having
a drink."

Common sense dominated the Court of Common Pleas,
where for many years he presided. Chief Baron Pallas,
President of the Exchequer Division, was, and is, a profound
lawyer, a man of most miraculous memory and erudition.
In his court strict law was conscientiously meted out to the
litigants. The Queen's Bench was not strong in any special
department. The joke in the Four Courts ran, a joke with
a spice of truth in it : "If you have the law of the case, go
to the Exchequer ; if you have the merits, go to the Common
Pleas ; if you have neither the law nor the merits, try the
Queen's Bench."

On one occasion I raised in the Common Pleas Division
a highly technical, but unanswerable, point of law as a
defence to a motion for judgment in an action to recover
the price of goods sold and delivered.

" That's a good law point," said the Chief Justice, " a
good Exchequer point, d' y' observe. But why doesn't
your client pay the man for the goods ? "

" Because he never got them, my lord."

" Now that's a good Common Pleas point, if you can
prove it," retorted the judge.

In social life he showed the same unconventional candour.

LAW AND LEVITY 125

It was his privilege to take the wife of a Home Rule Viceroy
into dinner at the Head of a very brilliant and representative
company at the Viceregal Lodge, Phoenix Park. She was
enthusiastic, as she was inexperienced in Irish politics.

" Chief Justice," she said, when the company were
seated, " I suppose we are all Home Rulers here to-night ? "

" My lady," he answered in his richest brogue, " the only
Home Rulers present are yourself, his Excellency — and the
waiters."

He was a Unionist in politics, as has been said, and was
prepared in his own humorous fashion to give reasons for
the faith that was in him.

" Here we are," I have heard him say, " a very poor
country in partnership with a very rich country, with our
hand in the till, and nothing will please us but to get away
to set up a little shebeen of our own."

It is probable that he altered his opinion on this point
later on, for no man was more moved by the discovery, by
the Financial Relations Commission, that it is the very rich
country that has had its hand in the very poor country's till,
to the tune of three millions, or thereabouts, a year, and no
man argued the poor country's case for restitution with
more ability.

One thing is certain, that his Unionism never took the
form of abasement before the superior virtue or intelligence
of the predominant partner.

The Irish question was the main topic of conversation at
a dinner-party at which he was a guest. One noble
member of a Unionist Cabinet undertook to instruct the
company on the question. He found the solution of the
problem in the sacred mission of the superior and en-
lightened race to enlighten and control poor, ignorant
Irish who were incapable of self-government. The Chief
Justice, because he had lived his life in Ireland and knew
the country and the people as he knew his alphabet, was,
of course, quietly ignored.

At length it occurred to the omniscient nobleman who
dominated the discussion, that it would be only polite to
make at least a pretence of desiring his opinion. He ques-

126 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

tioned him with good-humoured condescension, as a grown-
up man might put a question to a clever little boy, to flatter
the little fellow, without attaching the least importance to
his answering.

" Well, Chief Justice/' he said, " what do you think of the
Irish difficulty ? "

The reply came like a thunder-clap on the self-complacent
company.

" It's a case, do you see, my lord, of a very stupid people
trying to govern a very clever people against their will, and
there will be always a little difficulty about that."

" That's not very complimentary, Chief Justice," re-
torted the outraged nobleman.

" No, but it's true, my lord, d' y' observe, and that's
better than complimentary."

By common consent the Irish question was dropped for
the rest of the evening.

As a general rule a judge is spoiled by his promotion. The
elevation makes him dizzy. Even the mildest-mannered
man is inclined to be a bit peremptory with former colleagues.
His tongue tangs authority and his temper is apt to be
snappy. There was one striking example in my time, when
Mr. James Murphy, Q.C., one of the most pugnacious of
counsel, was transformed into the most genial of judges.
Those who knew him at the Bar felt it was the same man,
strong, clear, resolute, only he had changed his manner from
steel to silk. He had been an unequalled prosecutor ; on
the Bench the prisoner found him the worst or the best of
judges. If the prisoner tried by him was innocent, there
was no fear ; if he was guilty, there was no hope. He had
a knack of going straight to the truth of a case and carrying
the jury after him. The most skilful advocacy could not
stop him. Even " the Counsellor," of whom I have already
written, was hopeless when this particular judge was on the
war-path. Here is an illustration : —

The indictment was for what is known as a " Whiteboy
offence," the wrecking of a dwelling-house, and there were
about a dozen men in the dock charged with the crime.

The Counsellor put up a witness for the defence who

Photo by Chancellor and Son, Dublin.

MR. JUSTICE JAMES MURPHY

p. 126

LAW AND LEVITY 127

was shrewdly suspected of being himself one of the party,
and who purported to prove that the window-breaking had
been done by a party of thoughtless, innocent boys on their
way home from school. The witness was, naturally,
nervous, but he pulled through tolerably well in his direct
evidence under the skilful manipulation of the Counsellor.
Before the Crown Prosecutor could open his mouth to cross-
examine, the judge interposed.

" Turn round/' he said in his deep voice.

The witness turned and nervously faced his comrades in
the dock.

" Now, tell me," the judge went on in a quiet, matter-of-
fact tone, as if asking a commonplace question, " which of
those ' boys ' were with you wrecking the man's house ? "

Before the witness could stop himself, he had identified
half a dozen of the prisoners. Five minutes later the
Counsellor was on his legs telling the jury that they " knew
him and he knew them and that there was not a shadow
of evidence against his respectable clients."

The judge and the Counsellor encountered again at the
same Assizes. The prisoner, this time, was charged with the
attempted night robbery of a " lone, widdy woman." The
amazon had proved, however, perfectly competent to take
care of herself and her property. Armed with a two-
pronged pitchfork she had put the marauder to flight, and
had managed, moreover, to get home one shrewd prod as he
scuttled through the door. The police found the prisoner
next morning under suspicious circumstances, with two
ignominious scars on his rear still raw and bleeding.

This seemed a strong case, but it did not daunt the
Counsellor. He had witnesses to prove that his client had
been tossed by a sharp-horned bull, who had breached him
in exactly the same way as the pitchfork had breached the
mysterious marauder. This evidence was corroborated by
an elaborate " alibi," a mode of defence in which the Irish
peasant has the same absolute confidence as Mr. Weller.

The attempted robbery took place at two o'clock in the
morning. One of the witnesses for the defence boldly swore
that he had a cock that crowed punctually at that hour, and

128 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

having been awakened by the crowing he looked in casually
at the prisoner and found him peaceably in bed at the pre-
cise time that the attempted robbery was in progress five
miles away.

The Counsellor having made a vigorous appeal to the
jury to acquit his innocent client without turning in their
box, the judge came to the charge. He gravely discussed
the " co-incidental bull " and the " time-keeping cock."
" Putting this and that together, gentlemen," he concluded,
" you have the story of the cock and bull."

On one occasion, however, even before Judge Murphy, a
prisoner got off who was unmistakably and even confessedly
guilty, as far as deliberate intent can constitute an offence. I
remember well the judge telling the story at a circuit dinner.

To understand the case it is necessary that the lay reader
should know that, by one of the curious provisos of the
British law, to constitute a larceny it is necessary that
the article stolen should be wholly removed by the thief.
To use the technical phrase, the " aportavit " must be
" laid and proved."

There had been a good deal of pocket-picking in a certain
town in the South of Ireland. It was almost impossible to
walk of an evening on the " Mall," which was the fashionable
promenade, and come home with unviolated pocket.
For a long time the adroit thief defied detection.

Now it so happened that a pompous, middle-aged gentle-
man in the town, whose rubicund face and social habits had
earned for him the sobriquet of " Bacchus," resolved to
play the r61e of amateur detective. He pinned a large silk
handkerchief by one end into his pocket, and with the other
end temptingly protruding walked leisurely down the Mall.
In a few moments a tiny thrill on the handkerchief apprised
him of a bite, and turning sharply round he collared a young
ragamuffin in the act.

The young vagabond, when his trial came on, defended
himself, and proved as nimble and dexterous with his tongue
as with his fingers.

The case was proved home against him, yet he opened his
cross-examination in the gayest fashion.

LAW AND LEVITY 129

" See here to me now, Bacchus," he began with easy
familiarity ; " you're mighty clever ? "

The pompous prosecutor objected, and the judge inter-
posed.

" It was only a joke, me lord," explained the young
rascal in the dock ; " of course I didn't mean that Bacchus
had brains."

" See here to me, Bacchus," he began again, and this time
the prosecutor did not venture to resent the familiarity ;
" you swear you pinned the handkerchief to the bottom
of your pocket ? "

" So I did."

" Hard and fast ? "

" Fast enough."

" And I couldn't take it out ? "

" How could you ? "

" And I didn't ? "

" You did not because you could not, but you did your
best."

" Just so ! Now, me lord, will your lordship kindly
direct an acquittal ? "

' You confounded young scamp ! " burst out the chief
witness for the prosecution.

" Steady, Bacchus, steady, I was not speaking to you.
You don't understand the law, me man. I was asking his
lordship for a direction of not guilty."

" But why ? " queried the judge, amazed, yet amused at
his audacity.

" Where's the ' sportavit/ me lord ? " was the triumphant
rejoinder.

He had hit the legal blot in the prosecution, and his
acquittal followed in due course.

Judge Murphy once delivered a very effective charge to a
jury in an action for breach of promise of marriage. The
defendant was not examined, and the judge naturally
commented strongly on this fact in his charge. He was
interrupted by the protest of the defendant.

" You have no right to say that, my lord ; sure, I wanted
to be examined and my counsellor wouldn't let me."
K

130 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" All right, my man," said the judge, " come up on the
table and be sworn. Why didn't you marry the girl ? "

" Because she hadn't the fortune I wanted, my lord."

" How much was that ? "

" Five hundred pounds, no less."

" Gentlemen of the jury," said the judge, concluding his
charge, " you will find for the defendant five hundred pounds
damages. Now, sir " (to the defendant), " she has the
fortune you want."

CHAPTER XIII
LAUGHTER IN COURT

Lord Justice Barry — Mislaid his fee — Asses and assets — Lord Justice
Whiteside — A neat retort — Judge Webb — " Johnny, I hardly knew
you ! " — " Fictions founded on fact " — A startling comparison — Lord
Chancellor Sullivan — The Yelverton case — The horns of a dilemma —
An Irish " Miss Flite " — " I know it all by heart " — " I'm the testator ! "
— Lord Justice Holmes and Lord Atkinson — A bit mixed.

ERD JUSTICE BARRY was one of the ablest, kindliest
and laziest of men. When he was appointed a Lord
Justice of Appeal someone asked him did he not find the
work hard. " The brain-work is not hard," was the answer,
" but the cushions are." He did not put it exactly in that
way.

This anecdote, however, has to do with the time when he
was Attorney-General and leader of the Bar. For the
uninitiated, it is necessary to explain in parenthesis the way
Bar fees are usually paid and receipted. The cheque is
caught under the pink tape with which the brief is tied ;
the receipt consists of the counsel's initials under the
figure marked on the brief.

In this case the solicitor — a man at the very top of his
profession — came himself with a big brief and a big fee
marked on it. He was very anxious about the action.

" I want you to attend specially for the plaintiff in this
case," he said, " and I have marked fifty guineas on your
brief. It is touch and go. There is a chance it may be
settled, but if not settled we must win. Anyhow, it cannot
be on for a fortnight."

The solicitor departed, having received most comforting
assurances of special attention to the case. A week after-
wards he met his counsel, who advised him that the case
was eminently one for amicable settlement.

132 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Acting on this advice he did his level best to secure a
settlement out of court, but failed. It was nearer to three
weeks than a fortnight when it was called. Then it came on
a little unexpectedly by the collapse of the case immediately
before it in the list.

Everything was ready, or appeared to be ready, for the
hearing, when, as often happens, the parties and their
solicitors got together at the last moment and arrived at
an amicable settlement.

The leading counsel for the plaintiff seemed much pleased
at this result when he handed his brief to the solicitor with
a word of congratulation.

The solicitor looked at the back of the brief.

" You have not receipted the fee," he said.

" My dear fellow/' said the counsel a little awkwardly,
" I will be glad to do anything to oblige you, but my
invariable rule is not to receipt the brief until the fee is
paid/'

" But the fee has been paid nearly a month ago ! "

With a deprecatory smile : " You will find you are
mistaken/'

" I cannot be mistaken ; I put it there myself."

Then the solicitor pulled the slip-knot of red tape and
opened the brief. There was the cheque inside.

The explanation dawned on both at once. The counsel
had never opened the brief. Let it be added that, had he
been put to it, he would have contrived somehow or other to
get hold of the facts and delivered an admirable opening
statement of the case.

Justice is popularly supposed to be blind, but when, as
has sometimes happened in Ireland, Justice is deaf as well,
the result is startling.

A judge, to whose identity I offer no clue, was engaged in
hearing, or I should rather say watching, the trial of a
tedious case, in which the property in dispute was a number
of asses which one dealer had alleged had been wrongfully
taken away and detained by the other. The case " dragged
its slow length along " for several days. Voluminous
evidence had been given by witnesses, eloquent speeches

LAUGHTER IN COURT 133

had been made by counsel, elaborate notes taken by the
judge. It is needless to say that the asses on which the
dispute turned had been mentioned some thousand times by
witnesses and counsel during the progress of the case.

At length the trial drew to a close. Counsel for the plaintiff
was making his final appeal to the jury. He was suddenly
interrupted by the judge.

" I want to know," he said, looking up from his notes
with a look of owlish wisdom, " I want to know who is the
testator in this case ? "

" There is no testator, my lord."

" Then how can there be an executor ? "

" There is no executor, my lord."

" Then who is the administrator ? "

" There is no administrator."

" Oh," exclaimed his lordship, " no matter ; I thought I
heard somebody say something about assets."

Another amusing story of the same judge, though it is
an echo of the tennis-court rather than of the Four Courts,
may not be regarded as out of place.

He was a particularly skilful racquets player ; in the
midst of an exciting match, swinging his racquet sharply
round for a back-hander, he took his opponent a cut on the
shin-bone, which sent him hopping, dancing and cursing
round the court like a frightened blue-bottle on a window-
pane.

" It's broken, it's broken ! " he yelled at the top of his
voice.

His unwitting aggressor meanwhile waited patiently for
the game to go on. At length the continued yell, " It's
broken, it's broken ! " came faintly to his ear.

He looked anxiously at his favourite racquet, leant it on
the ground and bent it gingerly to either side.

Then he smiled.

" No, no," he cried cheerily to his opponent, " it's all
right, it's all right ; it's not broken, it's not even
strained ! "

Lord Chief Justice Whiteside, possibly the most eloquent
advocate the Irish Bar has ever known, retired from the

134 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Bench before I was called to the Bar. My very earliest
recollection of a law court was his delightful reply to a
witness, who coming upon the table declared :

" I object to give evidence in this case unless I am paid."

" How, sir/' said the Chief Justice, " have they not paid
your expenses ? "

' Yes, my lord, they have," the witness replied, " but I
think they have a right to pay me for my trouble."

" Sir," replied the Chief Justice gravely, " your sup-
position is correct. They have undoubtedly the right you
mention, but apparently they do not choose to avail them-
selves of their right."

There was a famous libel action some little time after
I was called, which caused unlimited amusement to the
profession and the public. The plaintiff, a corporation
official, was a particularly plump personage, the defendant
a distinguished artist. The alleged libel consisted of a
cartoon in which the plaintiff was depicted on horseback
in the comical uniform appertaining to his office as City
Marshal, and by way of legend a line from a comic song
popular at the time, " Faix, Johnny, I hardly knew you ! "
The plaintiff's special grievance may be best gathered from
the following paragraph from the statement of claim : —

" The said defendant in said picture or cartoon falsely
and maliciously represented the said plaintiff with the lower
and hind portion of his body of enormous, ridiculous and
exaggerated dimensions, and partially uncovered by his
tunic."

The late Judge Webb, who was counsel for the defence,
resolved to laugh the case out of court, and succeeded.
His speech was full of audacious humour, but it was his
peroration that settled the verdict.

" Gentlemen of the jury," he said, " ladies of fashion are
connoisseurs in beauty. They have so realized the charms
of those graceful and swelling curves of which the plaintiff
complains, that they have called Art to Nature's aid in
contriving them. These elegant devices of theirs have been
aptly described as ' fictions founded on fact.' But the
plaintiff in this case, gentlemen of the jury, more sensitive

Photo by Lafayette Ltd., Dublin.

THE LATE COUNTY COURT JUDGE WEBB

LAUGHTER IN COURT 135

than the ladies, unreasonably objects to have any fiction
founded on his. fact."

The same Dr. Webb was on one occasion counsel for
Peter Mulligan, who made an application before the Re-
corder of Dublin for a license for a public-house. The
applicant was only twenty-five years of age, and the police
objected on account of his youth.

" He is very young for so responsible a position," quoth
the Recorder.

Dr. Webb instantly rose to the occasion :

" My lord," he said, " Alexander the Great at twenty-two
years of age had — had crushed the Illyrians and razed the
city of Thebes to the ground, had crossed the Hellespont at
the head of his army, had conquered Darius with a force
of a million in the defiles of Issus and brought the great
Persian Empire under his sway. At twenty-three Rene
Descartes evolved a new system of philosophy. At twenty-
four Pitt was Prime Minister of the British Empire, on
whose dominions the sun never sets. At twenty-four
Napoleon overthrew the enemies of the Republic with a
whiff of grape-shot in the streets of Paris, and is it now to
be judicially decided that at twenty-five my client, Peter
Mulligan, is too young to manage a public-house in Capel
Street ? "

The license was hurriedly granted.

It was said that the late Lord Chancellor Sullivan was for
many years the real governor of Ireland, so faithfully did a
succession of Lord-Lieutenants and Chief Secretaries follow
his advice.

By sheer merit he climbed through every gradation to
the supreme position of head of the Irish Judiciary. I did
not know him at all as an advocate, but traditions of his
prowess as a cross-examiner were still alive in the Four
Courts when I was called to the Bar.

The famous Yelverton case turned on a question of
marriage or seduction.

" Major Yelverton," asked Sullivan, opening his cross-
examination of the defendant, " did you ever love Theresa
Longworth ? "

136 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

The Major hesitatingly confessed that he did. The next
question impaled him on the horns of a dilemma.

" Honourably or dishonourably ? "

As Master of the Rolls, and afterwards as Lord Chancellor,
Sullivan was the most considerate of men. Nervous young
juniors were sure in his court of an encouraging word and a
patient hearing. But he thought fit to disguise, or attempt
to disguise, his general kindliness behind the strict manner
and the strong words of the martinet.

A somewhat loose practice had crept into the Rolls
Court — where he for a long time presided — regarding the pay-
ment of funds out of court. He " resolved to reform it
altogether." The moment payment of money was so much
as hinted at in a law argument, counsel was instantly
pulled up sharply by the curt command from the Bench :

" Produce the Accountant-General's certificate ! "

It came to pass that " produce the Accountant-General's
certificate " grew to be a byword with the Bar. I remember
I was out on a boating excursion with some colleagues. The
weather grew chilly. " Produce the Accountant-General's
certificate," said one of the party to another. Instantly
a huge, well-filled wicker flask made its appearance. It was
called the Accountant-General's certificate, he explained,
because it was necessary to produce it on every emergency.

There was in those days an Irish " Miss Flite," as strange
and as sad as the little lady of Dickens' creation. She, too,
had been driven crazy by interminable litigation, and
some curious fascination compelled her to haunt the courts,
as ghosts are reputed to haunt the scene of their misfortune.
There she would sit for the length of a day in the back
benches behind the counsel, with sad attentive ear listening
to the law arguments.

It was noticed, however, that a gleam of pleasure shone on
her pale face whenever there was a breeze in court and the
little judge let out at some delinquent. It was noticed, too,
that occasionally she muttered to herself as if engaged in
fervent prayer. A junior barrister, prompted by curiosity,
got close enough to her seat to catch the words of her
muttered litany :

LAUGHTER IN COURT 137

" O Lord God," it ran, " mercifully grant that the
Accountant-General's certificate cannot be produced."

The poor old thing had not the least idea what the
Accountant-General's certificate was, or what it was wanted
for. But she knew if it was not produced there was bound
to be a row in court, and that was quite enough for her.

His lordship was a great stickler for precise pleading.
From having been the most eloquent of Nisi Prius advocates,
he had, by almost miraculous transformation, become one
of the most accomplished of Equity Judges.

In a case before him the merits were all with the plaintiff,
but the plaintiff's pleadings were in a hopeless muddle.
Over and over again the judge harped sharply on the
irregularities. The junior counsel for the plaintiff, afterwards
Judge Monroe, a brilliant Nisi Prius advocate, one of the
most genial and popular of men, and a great favourite with
this particular judge, evaded technicalities and stuck to the
merits of the case. Though little used to the Equity side
of the court, his clear common sense carried him through,
and he made an excellent argument.

" Quite so, quite so," the judge assented sharply. " But
will you kindly tell me how comes it that there is not one
word of the case you are now making in your statement of
claim ? "

" I'll tell your lordship. It is very simple. I drafted
the statement of claim, my lord, and, as your lordship is
aware, I am a d — d bad Equity pleader."

There were no more complaints about the statement of
claim to the end of the case.

The following retort was still more audacious. Woe
betide the solicitor that came into this court unprepared !
The judge instantly launched out into a torrent of pictur-
esque invective and threats of the things he would do the
" next time." But the judicial bark had no bite attached.
It was always the " next time." The offender was merely
required, for form's sake, to look penitent. Presently the
judge cooled down and the case quietly proceeded.

The instance of which I have to tell was, however, a
particularly bad offence. The counsel, Mr. Jackson,[g.c., a

138 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

genial and easy-going gentleman — had been handed his
brief at the door of the court and none of the original
documents were forthcoming. Instantly the judge pro-
ceeded to paint the court red in his customary fashion.
The counsel philosophically availed himself of the welcome
respite to glance through the pages of his brief.

The judge in full torrent of his fiery eloquence, happened
to glance down and saw him thus placidly employed.
Suddenly interrupting himself, he exclaimed :

" I declare, Mr. Jackson, you have not been attending to
a single word I said ! "

Counsel looked up from his brief with a smile, keeping his
place with his hand.

" No, my lord," he assented blandly, " I knew it all by
heart."

The judge's sense of humour was irresistibly tickled. He
made one brief vain effort to look stern and dignified, then
he joined in the shout of laughter that shook the court.

He was very clear and masterful in his judgments, and
was almost invariably upheld on appeal. But on one
occasion he was interrupted and reversed in his own court.

It was an equity suit to determine the true construction
of the last testament of a man who had disappeared some
twenty years before, leaving a complex will, considerable
property and a large number of relatives to scramble for it.

The judge formed, as was his wont, a strong opinion, and
expressed it strongly in his judgment. Having set forth his
view of the will —

" This," he said, "it is perfectly clear, was the true
meaning and intention of the testator."

" I beg your pardon, my lord," interrupted a voice in the
body of the court, " it was nothing of the kind."

The judge was struck dumb for a moment with anger and
amazement.

" How dare you, sir ! " he broke out at last. " How dare
you interrupt the court in this scandalous fashion ! Who
are you, sir ? "

" I am the testator, my lord."

Both the parties to the following amusing encounter are

SIR EDWARD SULLIVAN

Late Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

p. 138

LAUGHTER IN COURT 139

still alive, and both occupy high positions on the Bench, one
in Ireland, the other in England. At the time the thing
happened the more highly placed of the two judges was an
advocate practising at the Irish Bar, an able lawyer and an
eloquent speaker. He had, however, a peculiar trick of
mixing the names of the parties, a particularly irritating
trick — I have it myself, so I ought to know.

In the case of " Brown v. Jones " he was engaged in an
erudite law argument. For a long time Judge Holmes
heard him with patience.

" I beg your pardon, Mr. Atkinson/' he said at last. " So
long as you persistently and consistently alluded to the
plaintiff Brown as the defendant Jones and the defendant
Jones as the plaintiff Brown, the court could contrive to
follow your argument. But when you introduce a third
party by the name of Robinson without explaining whether
you intend him to represent the plaintiff Brown or the
defendant Jones, a certain difficulty arises."

On another occasion Lord Justice Holmes was himself
amusingly countered by a junior barrister, who was
defending a prisoner before him. Though the prisoner was
a rather elderly man, counsel made frequent appeals to the
jury to take into account the fact that he was an orphan.

The judge grew impatient.

" I really don't see/1 he exclaimed, " how the fact that
your client is an orphan bears on the case. He is old
enough to take care of himself, and it is quite natural at
his age he should have lost his parents. For instance, I
myself am an orphan."

' Yes, my lord," interposed the counsel, " and should
your lordship ever have the misfortune to come before a
jury of your fellow-countrymen, I trust that circumstance
will be taken into consideration in your lordship's favour."

CHAPTER XIV
PRACTICE AT THE BAR

On trial for his life — Murder will out — Three times tried — A close shave —
A test of insanity — An unspeakable woman — Concocted confession —
" I gave it to him in the groin " — Good coin or counterfeit ? — An
ingenious fraud.

E£E necessity, I knew no law when I was called to the
Bar, I learned it by practice as a child learns to walk
by walking. An old schoolfellow, Mr. Thomas O'Meara,
who had just been entered as a solicitor, gave me all his
business, and it is very pleasant to remember that in the
first fourteen cases we worked together we scored thirteen
wins. Amongst these cases were two actions for breach of
promise of marriage. In one of them, brought by a butcher
against a countess, we secured damages for the butcher ;
in the other, brought by a young lady against a publican,
the defendant, for whom we appeared, got his verdict with
costs.

I found criminal cases, though the least profitable, far
the most exciting. In my time I defended as many as a
score of prisoners for their lives, but I had the same feverish
anxiety in the last case as in the first.

People may say, " Why be anxious, especially when you
know your client is guilty ? " An advocate, if he is worth
his salt, never while the trial lasts believes in the guilt of the
prisoner he is defending for his life. All other considerations
are lost in the overwhelming desire to save his man from
the gallows.

It is an exciting game to play when the stakes are the life
or death of the unhappy wretch who stands there grasping the
spikes of the dock, with livid face and eyes of piteous appeal :
a game of caution and skill that puts an almost unendurable

140

PRACTICE AT THE BAR 141

strain on the nerves. A single question may save a man or
hang him. The advocate has to get inside the brain and
heart of the jury to find arguments to convince, appeals to
move them.

One man I remember well whom I defended at three
separate trials — a good-looking, powerful, middle-aged man.
He was accused of murdering his brother-in-law, a vicious
drunkard, a ne'er-do-well, who made the lives of his wife
and children a hell upon earth. One night this reprobate
disappeared and was seen no more. His wife and children
were made happy by his death. The brother, who was a
well-to-do bachelor, helped them, and for fourteen years
all went well with the family. Then, in the midst of security,
the ghost of the forgotten victim rose from its grave. An
accomplice confessed on his death-bed ; the skeleton of
the murdered man was discovered in the bog-hole indicated
in the confession, and a hundred corroborating circumstances
unnoticed at the time were remembered. I was never in a
case in which the evidence was so cruelly conclusive. There
was hardly a loophole for the most shadowy doubt to
creep in.

Every day for a week I fought the battle for this man's life ;
all night I lay awake thinking of him. The eyes that looked
out from the dock, the eyes of a newly caged beast in deadly
terror, were always before me. In the first trial the con-
scientious doubt of a single juror alone stood between the
prisoner and death : in the second there were three jurors
in his favour ; in the third seven ; finally he was discharged
a broken-down wreck of a man, the ghost of his former self.

In another murder trial in which I appeared for the defence
the accused had travelled all the way from the North of
Ireland to shoot in Galway a pretty barmaid who had
jilted him. The only possible defence was insanity, and he
would have escaped on this plea of insanity, so a juror told
me afterwards, but for one apparently trivial circumstance.
When he arrived at Galway he had two glasses of raw
whiskey to prime him for the murder. A madman, the jury
shrewdly argued, would not need a stimulant ; so they
convicted him.

142 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

In another murder case I had the startling illustration of
the truth of Tennyson's lines :

For men at most differ as Heaven and Earth,
But women, best and worst, are heaven and hell.

The malignant ingenuity displayed by a young girl who
was chief witness in the case, passes belief. For some slight
slur, real or fancied, she strove with devilish cunning to
swear away the lives of two wholly innocent people.

A policeman had been murdered at dusk in the streets of
the small town of Loughrea. The girl, who was then in the
service of a publican named Clarke, swore that she heard
her master relate to his wife in circumstantial detail how
he committed the murder.

The story was admirably devised and supported by a
great deal of circumstantial corroboration. Clarke, more-
over, had had many quarrels with the constable with regard
to licensing prosecutions, and the impossibility of believing
that a young girl could or would invent such a story told
powerfully against the prisoner.

A few days before the trial the solicitor who instructed
me in the case came to me with the news that the chief
witness for the prosecution was a girl of bad character,
who had had an illegitimate child in the Portumna work-
house.

" She will deny it," I said.

" I can prove it," he replied.

" No, you can't."

" But I can, I tell you. I have the evidence of the master
and the matron and the midwife of the workhouse."

" Not one of them will be allowed to open their lips in
the case," I explained. " Her denial on cross-examination
as to character must be accepted as conclusive. However,
I'll see what I can do."

When it came to the trial I had the master, matron and
midwife all ranged together on a bench facing the jury box.

The girl gave her evidence with wonderful coolness and
ingenuity. She described Clarke telling the details of the
murder to his wife in his bedroom, while the witness listened
at the keyhole :

PRACTICE AT THE BAR 143

" I was waiting for him with the revolver ready when he
came close up to me, I gave it to him in the groin, and he
fell on the spot. I ran round the corner and came back again
with the crowd when the body was found and they were
carrying him to the police-station."

Reading over the depositions, I found that her evidence
at the trial was practically the same as she had sworn before
the magistrates the day after the murder. It was impossible
to break her down on cross-examination. As I anticipated,
she denied point-blank the incident at the Portumna
workhouse, and by law, as I have said, I was not allowed to
controvert that denial. The expediency of the legal rule is
plain enough. If it were otherwise a new issue might be
raised about the character of every witness, and trials
would be interminable. But there can be no doubt that
the rule occasionally shuts an essential truth from the
jury.

This time I succeeded in getting the truth in by a side
door. I told the witness to look at the master of the work-
house where he sat fronting the jury.

" Did you ever see that man before ? "

" Never ! "

The expression on his face was more valuable than any
evidence he could have given on his oath. The matron's
face when her turn came was a still more emphatic contra-
diction. But the midwife lost all control of herself when the
witness denied having ever seen her, she threw up her
hands and her eyes in eloquent protest.

" Oh, you huzzy, you lying huzzy," she cried, " how
dare you swear the like o' that ! "

There was a sharp order of silence in the court, but the
truth had got to the jury in spite of the law.

Then followed a strange little bit of evidence that abso-
lutely exonerated the accused, and proved conclusively that
the story of his confession was a lying concoction from
beginning to end. " In the groin " of the murdered police-
man, when his body was brought to the barracks, there
had been found a gaping bullet-wound. No other wound
was discovered at the time, and it was naturally assumed

144 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

that the man was shot in the groin from in front. The girl
was present on the occasion at the police barracks, and she
shaped the alleged confession accordingly.

But on subsequent examination a small wound was
found where the bullet entered at the buttock and passed
right through. The wound on the groin marking the exit of
the bullet was, of course, the larger and the more conspicuous,
but the medical evidence was conclusive. The doctor swore
the man had been shot from behind, and so the whole case
for the prosecution crumbled away and the prisoner was
instantly acquitted.

I never heard what became of the girl.

As an illustration of a very ingenious swindle, the following
otherwise unimportant case may not be without interest.
I was instructed to defend a man for coining, and at first
sight the case did certainly appear very strong against the
prisoner.

He had gone to a shopkeeper in Sligo and suggested a
partnership in a coining campaign. As a proof of good
faith, he offered there and then to coin a base half-crown
which it would be impossible to detect. He had with him
a wooden frame lined with tin, with a rude mould of a half-
crown in the middle. Into a small hole in the wood he
poured some white metal from a ladle, and presently
opening the mould he took out a new half-crown so hot
that the shopkeeper could not hold it in his hands, and so
perfectly made that the closest scrutiny could not detect
any difference between it and the genuine coin. It was
subjected to a still more stringent test. The shopkeeper
brought it to the bank and boldly asked if it was all
right. He was assured that it was a perfectly genuine half-
crown, and at his request they readily exchanged it for
another.

Then the coiner explained he could make as many as he
chose, but he wanted a few pounds to buy " the stuff/' The
cupidity of the shopkeeper was aroused, and he agreed to
supply the money on the understanding he was to get half
the profit. The coiner got five pounds on account and
instantly vanished with his apparatus. But his enraged

PRACTICE AT THE BAR 145

and deluded confederate put the police on his track, and he
was brought to trial at the Sligo Assizes.

The case was a puzzling one. I could not understand
how the man with the rude contrivance I held in my hand
could make a half-crown so perfect as to deceive the bank.
Closely examining the wooden press, I suddenly lit on the
solution of the mystery.

The hole in the wood into which the white metal was
poured did not run into the mould at all, but lodged it in a
cavity at the back. In the mould itself a genuine half-crown
had been surreptitiously placed before the operation com-
menced. When the coin had been sufficiently heated by the
molten metal at the back, the mould was opened and the
good half-crown triumphantly displayed.

My client was indicted for coining, but obtaining money
on false pretences was the crime of which he was actually
guilty. As there was neither attempt nor intent to coin he
could not be convicted on the indictment. I explained the
trick in court, and the prisoner was acquitted and discharged
by the direction of the judge.

One other case in which I was engaged by my friend
Tom O'Meara is worth recalling on account of the curious
result of our victory. The names of the parties have escaped
my memory, which keeps a tight hold of the facts, but the
names are not material.

A very old pedlar, whom I shall call Sullivan (I think that
was the name), had amassed the sum of £1800, which he kept
in bank on deposit receipt. He took sick on his beat and
was received into the house of a farmer named Flanagan,
when he died, and a few days after his death a will was
produced in which he left " all he died possessed of " to
Flanagan.

Another farmer named Sullivan came to my friend
O'Meara with instructions to enter a caveat, alleging that
he was next of kin of the deceased pedlar ; and I was
engaged on his behalf to dispute the will.

Very early in the trial I convinced myself that the will
was an absolute forgery, and that we would have no difficulty
in setting it aside. My suspicions were confirmed when,

146 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

during the lunch hour, the solicitor on the other side ap-
proached my friend with an offer to pay £1000 and costs
between solicitor and client if the opposition was with-
drawn. On this offer I declined to give any opinion
beyond stating my belief that the will could not stand.
The case proceeded and the will was set aside with costs.

Now comes the startling result. Our client subsequently
failed to prove himself any relation to the deceased pedlar.
He never touched a farthing of the assets, the entire property
passed to the Crown, and it was with the utmost difficulty
we got our costs allowed as a salvage claim.

Had the compromise been accepted, two people, neither
of whom had the slightest claim, legal or moral, would have
divided the money between them.

CHAPTER XV
A NEW DEPARTURE

William O'Brien, writer, orator, agitator — United Ireland — My first
connection with the paper — Coercion — A unique newspaper — Lord
Clanricarde and Sanguinette — A curious apology — Defiance and
immunity.

THOUGH always a convinced and outspoken Home
Ruler, I had, before I was called to the Bar, taken
little share in politics beyond what came in the way of my
duty as a writer and reporter on a Nationalist newspaper.
I was settling down to a jog-trot career at the Bar, with a
steadily growing practice and income, when my friend
William O'Brien called on me in my rooms in Henrietta
Street and altered the whole tenor of my life.

He had been a colleague of mine on the Freeman's Journal,
and had been generally regarded as the most brilliant
member on the staff. But he was, above all things, a
fervent Nationalist, and had been induced by Mr. Parnell
to abandon the Freeman and to found and edit United Ireland
as a weekly campaign sheet for the National movement.

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to describe this very
remarkable man, who has played so strenuous a part in the
recent history of Ireland.

When I first met him on the Freeman's Journal staff he
gave me the idea of being a student rather than an orator
or agitator. He had a rooted repugnance to public speaking.
I remember once his surprise in those early days that I
could eat my dinner comfortably at some little Press
festivity when I was down as one of the speakers on the
toast list. Such an ordeal, he assured me, would most
efficiently spoil his appetite. He was afterwards to become
the greatest platform speaker of his day, the greatest that

148 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Ireland has known since O'Connell, an orator whose words
could inspire his audience with an enthusiasm almost
amounting to frenzy. Yet he has often told me that his
repugnance to public speaking has not diminished in the
least, that a speech is still for him as painful an ordeal as
ever. As an agitator he was unsurpassed. His fiery
earnestness carried all before it. Absolutely fearless, he was
ready for any sacrifice, and when he led all were prepared
to follow, doubts and fears forgotten. Lowell's description
of Lincoln fits him like a glove : —

He could not see but just one side,
If his 'twas God's, and that was plenty.
And so his " forward " multiplied
One army's fighting weight to twenty.

This was the man that came to me one evening as I sat,
over my briefs and law books in a great lofty room with
the ceiling like the top of a wedding-cake, at a huge round
mahogany table (I have it still), which was once the dining-
table of Lord Mount joy.

He wanted to consult me on a question of law. A man
named Hynes had just been convicted of murder (unjustly
convicted, it was believed) by a packed jury and had been
hanged, to the last protesting innocence on the scaffold,
and O'Brien had written a strong article on the subject for
United Ireland. At the time he wanted to keep within the
law, to give the Castle no reasonable pretext for a prose-
cution, and he invited me, as a lawyer, to revise the
article. Ultimately I persuaded him it was best to put the
protest in verse form, which I wrote then and there. I only
remember the last verse :

" Not guilty," he said, looking death in the face

On the brink of the grave where he stood.
" Not guilty, but you who have compassed my death,

You are guilty of innocent blood."

It was my first contribution to United Ireland, but before
O'Brien left that night he had persuaded me to write an
occasional leading article for the paper. I objected that I
was too busy with the law, but there was no resisting
O'Brien when he had his heart set on anything. I did not

I 1 I

i §

I & :

A NEW DEPARTURE 149

then foresee as the result of my promise I should in a short
time become, and continue for many years, the acting
editor and chief writer of United Ireland.

It came about this way. Mr. Balfour started his coercion
campaign in Ireland, and William O'Brien at once set
himself to the task of opposing it and defeating it.

Naturally he was one of the first victims, and on his
imprisonment he refused to wear the prison clothes. One
night his own clothes were stolen while he slept, but a few
days later he contrived to have a new suit introduced into
his cell, and no further attempt was made to compel him to
wear the prisoners' dress.

The whole incident created immense excitement in Ireland.
" The O'Brien tweed " was the only wear for National-
ists. In the first of two cartoons in United Ireland Mr.
Balfour was depicted as a turnkey stealing the clothes
while O'Brien slept. The other displayed his grotesque
amazement at finding his victim reclothed. Ridicule is a
most fatal weapon in Ireland ; the incident was a sharp
blow for the coercion administration.

But it will be easily understood that this protracted duel
left William O'Brien little time to edit United Ireland or
write its editorials, and so that burden gradually shifted
itself on to my shoulders.

In all newspaper literature there was never a paper like
United Ireland. It disdained advertisements and neglected
all news except the news directly connected with the
National movement. It lived and flourished by its editorials
and cartoons alone, and it had a circulation of over a
hundred thousand copies, a circulation never equalled
before or since by any Irish newspaper. For several years,
right up to the Parnell split, I was acting editor and almost
sole editorial writer of United Ireland.

I wrote a weekly page of editorials, and suggested in
detail the cartoon depicting the chief political event of
the week. During those coercion days Mr. Balfour was, of
course, the chief figure in our cartoons, some of which are
perhaps worth reproducing. From a popular play came
the suggestion of our Private Secretary, who did not like

150 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Dublin. After William O'Brien's clothes were stolen in
prison Mr. Balfour was always depicted as the thief.

All this time Mr. O'Brien remained editor of the paper
and responsible for its contents. Once, when he was carried
off to prison, there was next day a letter to him at the office
from an estimable and sympathetic parish priest to say he
had at once " missed his brilliant pen from the pages of the
paper." O'Brien had not written a line for the paper for
six months previously. Such is the power of imagination !

United Ireland was conducted in defiance of the law of
libel. That is to say, that we told the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, and took the consequences.
The result was eminently satisfactory. During the years
that I was acting editor of the paper we had many threats
of a libel action, but no action.

Only once in my time was an apology printed in the
paper, and that was under circumstances so peculiar that it
deserves to be recorded.

" The most noble " the Marquis of Clanricarde was the
subject of many attacks in United Ireland. It was rumoured
that his lordship lent money at high interest, and we rashly
confounded him with that famous and more appropriately
named money-lender, Sanguinette.

One morning I found at the office a long and eloquently
worded protest from Sanguinette. He bitterly complained
of being in any way identified or connected with the Marquis
of Clanricarde, and enclosed his photograph as proof of his
identity, demanding, " in the interest of fair play, on which
your paper prides itself," an ample apology.

Thereupon United Ireland published its first and last
apology, humble and ample. " It was a gross insult," I
wrote, " to compare even the most merciless usurer with the
most noble Marquis of Clanricarde. We could easily
understand," we declared, " Mr. Sanguinette's indignation
at so invidious a comparison. We willingly withdraw the
charge, and apologize to Mr. Sanguinette for having
made it."

United Ireland in my time had not only immunity from
libel actions, but, stranger still, it had immunity from

Cartoon from " United Ireland," Oct. 16,

OUR PRIVATE SECRETARY

P. 150

A NEW DEPARTURE 151

coercion prosecutions. Amongst the offences created by
the Coercion Act was the attending of a meeting of a "sup-
pressed branch " of the National League, or publishing any
report of the proceedings. It did not matter in the least
how innocent of all offence might be the nature of the
proceedings or the report. The essence of the crime lay in the
proclamation. There was no " offence " under the Coercion
Act more zealously prosecuted or punished. T. D. Sullivan,
then the Lord Mayor of Dublin, got six months' imprison-
ment for the publication of one of those harmless reports in
his paper ; and Mr. John Hooper, Mayor of Cork, a similar
sentence for a similar publication.

Nor was that the worst. Reporters were imprisoned for
writing the reports, compositors were imprisoned for
printing them, and newsboys for selling copies of the papers
that contained them. All that time United Ireland weekly
published a full page of the proceedings of every suppressed
branch in Ireland.

I remember well the foreman printer, Mr. Donnelly, who
was a kind of factotum in the office, consulting me as to what
was to be done in regard to these forbidden reports.

" Put them," I said, " under a big heading, ' SUPPRESSED
BRANCHES,' in the front page of the paper."

For three years they were printed and published within
a mile of the Castle with absolute impunity, while every
other Nationalist paper was harassed with prosecution.

I have often tried since to calculate how many hundred
years' imprisonment I earned by those reports. But the
sum was beyond me. Anyhow, I got none.

CHAPTER XVI

THE HUMOURS OF COERCION

A letter from O'Brien — The Forgeries Commission — Contempt of court
and what came of it — Incidents of the Coercion Courts — Withdrawing
the tone — The stealing of the informations — Mr. Balfour and the
midwife — A comical conflict — Evading service — Caught !

NEVER had a man a kindlier or more encouraging
chief than O'Brien during the years I acted as his
deputy in the editorial chair of United Ireland. In all the
numerous letters I received from him during that time I
find words of encouragement and approval, in a few sugges-
tion, in none complaint. I may perhaps be allowed to offer a
single sample of the correspondence. The following letter he
contrived to slip out to me from Galway Jail on May 4th,
1889. It is written in pencil on a scrap of tissue-paper : —

" GALWAY JAIL,
" Saturday night,

" May tfh, 1889.
" MY DEAR MAT,

" Glad to have a chance of blowing a greeting to you.
I am deprived of only two luxuries — the sight of newspapers
and of ladies. At a paper I do manage to get a rare — and only
a rare — peep, but you will not be sorry, I hope, to hear that
every number of U.I. I have seen does you infinite credit
and has raised higher and higher my belief in your vigour,
wit and sense. I cannot give you any better advice than
fire away and God bless you (and my little godchild, as I
seem fated not to be able to send any better marks of
paternal interest than a blessing). Ask Whelan to hunt up
for me a copy of my pamphlet ' Christmas on the Galtees/
in my black tin case at the hotel ; also report in Freeman
of my first speech in Parliament (about March, 1883), and,

152

THE HUMOURS OF COERCION 153

send them on to Harrington or whatever London prison I
may be sent to. Kindest regards to Donnelly and all the
fellows. Ever your friend,

" W. O'B.

" I have written half an Irish novel — how delighted
Balfour will be to hear it — but I am very doubtful whether
the best place for the MS. would not be the fire. I should
like to have your opinion, it is such a ticklish experiment.

" W. O'B/'

Yet the solitary personal request that I made to O'Brien
in my character of acting editor of United Ireland he
peremptorily refused. It came about in this way.

The Times Commission, always described in United
Ireland as " the Forgeries Commission/' was then in full
swing. It will be remembered that the Commission was
appointed mainly, if not solely, to investigate the genuine-
ness of several documents published in The Times and
alleged to be " facsimiles of letters " written by Mr.
Parnell, clearly implicating him in the Phoenix Park murders.
But The Times, when the Commission was appointed,
shirked the issue of the letters, and devoted month after
month to raking up agrarian offences in Ireland, endeavour-
ing to connect them with the National organization of
which Mr. Parnell was the head. There was naturally great
impatience amongst Irish Nationalists at this delay in
attempting to substantiate the direct and deadly charge
made against the Irish leader. After the dilatory pro-
ceedings had dragged their slow length for some months, I
attempted to quicken the pace of the Commission by a
leader and cartoon in United Ireland.

In the cartoon was depicted a long train of the Irish
Constabulary wheeling up barrow-loads of rubbish with
which they were burying the judges, while the forged
letters were hidden away under a tombstone.

In the article I strongly denounced The Times as the
" forger," and roundly declared it was shirking the investiga-
tion of the letters because it knew them to be forged.

There was an immediate application by The Times

154 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

against the editor of United Ireland for contempt of court,
and a conditional order was made by the Commission that
he should appear and show cause why he should not be
fined and imprisoned.

This was just before the court adjourned for a fortnight.
The cause was to be shown on the resumption of the sitting.

Meanwhile I had an interview with William O'Brien, and
begged as a personal favour that I should be allowed to take
the defence of the article I had written on my own shoulders.
I assured him that I had written it with the hope of proceed-
ings and with a view to its defence. The gravamen of the
charge was that The Times had been called the " forger "
and the letters " forgeries," in anticipation of the decision of
the Commission. But, I argued The Times was guilty of
equal contempt of court in constantly alluding to the
letters as " facsimiles " of original letters of Mr. ParnelTs.

I urged in vain. It was impossible, O'Brien said, that he
could allow anyone but himself to take the responsibility
for United Ireland.

" But, my dear boy/' he added, " you have done me a
personal service. There are half a dozen Coercion summonses
and warrants out against me at present. If I am caught
first by The Times I will be treated as a first-class mis-
demeanant, which is luxury compared to the lot of a
Coercion Court prisoner/'

His first idea was to treat the whole procedure with
contempt, and to decline to attend. But I convinced him
that we had so strong a case that it would be a pity not to
make it. His defence was a complete triumph. The
conditional order was discharged, and for very shame sake
The Times was compelled to produce the forged letters, which
were instantly exposed. The result was the collapse of the
case, the disgrace of The Times, the suicide of the forger,
Pigott, and the complete vindication of Parnell.

It is not to be supposed that while engaged on United
Ireland I neglected the legal profession. The battle against
Coercion was fought in the courts as well as in the newspaper
office, and in a number of strange and exciting cases I was
counsel for the defence.

THE HUMOURS OF COERCION 155

Very early in the campaign against eviction, I was
engaged as counsel to defend a number of tenants in the
County of Wexford, who had made a vigorous stand against
eviction by the emergency forces. Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt's
volume of vivid description of the Land Wars in Ireland has
an interesting allusion to the case : —

" At Gorey we went straight to the court-house with a
number of priests and others to be present at the trial. The
prisoners were half a dozen men and four women, who had
defended their homes against the sheriff's officers, very
respectable people to all appearance ; and the first girl,
Mary Macdonnell, put on her trial was only seventeen. She
sat next to me, and I asked her about her relations. There
are no boys in the family, and she defended the place by
throwing hot gruel on the bailiffs. She looked barely her
age, a blushing child of the shepherdess kind, or rather like
one of Morland's milkmaids. She had really done the
thing and scalded one of the men, but Bodkin, who defended
her, managed to make the whole case so ridiculous that they
let her off. The chairman of the court was Lord Courtown,
who accidentally happened to be President of the Property
Defence Association, whose secretary was Captain Hamilton,
the agent and evictor, and this Bodkin took hold of very
cleverly and to such effect that it was almost impossible the
Bench should convict any one. I never was more struck
than to-day with the cleverness of all the Irish concerned
in these cases and the dullness of the Englishmen, or rather of
the landlords and their semi-English retainers. . . . After
the sessions we adjourned to the inn and sat down, some
twenty of us, to dinner, when songs followed and speeches,
my health being drunk and Bodkin's. Bodkin, who is a very
amusing man and really good fellow, has lately been acting
as editor of United Ireland in O'Brien's absence. He con-
siders O'Brien's visit to Canada, on the whole, a success,
but this is not everybody's opinion, notably not Davitt's,
though they are all fond of O'Brien. . . . Drove down
before breakfast with Bodkin to the sea to bathe. There
was not a ripple on the surface, and we jumped in off a rock
into several feet of water. Bodkin tells me they have often

156 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

asked him to go into Parliament, he is really as clever a man
and speaker as any of them, but he cannot afford it as he has
his living to make ; but as soon as there is a Parliament in
Dublin he will stand. He is far from a revolutionist in his
ideas, and considers that the landlords will be of great use,
politically, to Ireland in the first years of Home Rule. The
only wonder to my mind is how few landlords have joined
the cause. But the truth is there is a monstrous class
prejudice and a prejudice of religion."

I share Mr. Brunt's wonder that the great body of Irish
landlords have held aloof from the Home Rule movement ;
and I still hold my belief that they will receive, not merely
full fair play, but a great deal of favour in an Irish Parlia-
ment.

A little later I was engaged to defend in a case of greater
importance. The Woodfort tenants of the Marquis of
Clanricarde were indicted for resistance to eviction. The
cases, which excited intense interest at the time, were
tried in Sligo, and I was engaged with the late Mr. Leamy,
M.P., as counsel for the defence. We began by challenging
the array, and succeeded in having the whole jury panel set
aside as improperly drawn. The incident was commemorated
by a cartoon in United Ireland. The next time the jury
packing was done in open court by the Crown Solicitor.
The Catholic jurors were ordered to stand aside by the
hundred, and Protestants and Unionists only were admitted
to the jury box. Mr. Leamy and myself left the court as a
protest, and after we left the Protestant jurors declined to
convict. It was on that occasion that the Chief Justice,
Lord O'Brien of Kilfonora, then Serjeant O'Brien, Q.C., got
the nickname of " Pether the Packer/' by which he is
better known than by his title in Ireland.

But it was mainly in courts especially constituted under
the Coercion Act that Nationalists were attacked and
defended. These courts, as I have said, consisted of two
paid magistrates, declared by Mr. Morley to be " Removable
and Promo vable " by the Government. " Removables "
they were dubbed by United Ireland, and the name stuck.

It must, indeed, be confessed that Nationalist counsel

THE HUMOURS OF COERCION 157

were not over-polite to the " Removables," who frequently
retorted in kind by having them fired out of court. Mr.
Healy, for example, was twice hurled out by the police.
Looking back over my own exploits before the magistrates,
I wonder how I escaped a similar fate.

It was provided in the Act that the Lord-Lieutenant must
be " satisfied with the legal knowledge " of one of the two
magistrates, but it was not specified how that " satisfac-
tion " was to be acquired. The other magistrate might be
assumed to be wholly ignorant of law.

In one of those Coercion cases, as counsel for the defence,
I somewhat fluttered the court by politely inquiring which
of the two magistrates was " the gentleman of the sufficiency
of whose legal knowledge the Lord-Lieutenant was satisfied."
One of the two touched himself on the breast, and coyly
murmured, " I am the person," while his colleague blushed
like a schoolgirl.

But the Crown Prosecutor in his speech took the Bench
under his protection, and declared the magistrates a tribunal
infinitely superior to the old-fashioned system of trial by
jury.

On that hint I spake, and drew a contemptuous
comparison between the great constitutional tribunal, the
palladium of the people's liberty, and a " brace of hired
Government officials," " one of whom in some mysterious
manner had satisfied the Viceroy of his knowledge of the
law."

I was sternly interrupted by the magistrates, and called
upon for an instant withdrawal and apology.

There was a moment's silence and suspense, for those
were days, as I have already said, when defendant's counsel
were constantly fired out of court by the police.

" I think there must be some mistake," I replied, with a
conciliatory smile. " I described you as ' hired Govern-
ment officials.' Are you not Government officials ? Are
you not hired ? Are you ashamed of your position ? To
what can you object ? "

" We object to the whole tone," blundered out one of the
magistrates furiously.

158 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" Oh, now I understand. Then, your worships, I willingly
withdraw the tone. A brace of hired Government officials/'
I repeated in a voice as soft as the cooing of a turtle-dove.
" Will that do ? Thank you," and before the court had
recovered from its bewilderment I had resumed the even
tenor of my speech.

On another occasion I defended Mr. Cox, M.P., and Mr.
T. P. Gill, M.P., before a Coercion court in Dundalk and, an
almost unique experience, defended them successfully.
My knowledge of shorthand helped me to an effective cross-
examination of the constable, who purported to take down
the speeches for which the Members of Parliament were
tried. The result was the complete and palpable collapse
of evidence.

There were a number of English magistrates in court,
who had come over to see for themselves the working of the
Coercion Act in Ireland.

When my turn came to speak, I turned my back to the
court and addressed myself to the English magistrates
instead of the Removables. I pointed to the utter collapse
of the prosecution. " You, gentlemen," I concluded, " are
impartial English magistrates, independent of the executive.
If you had to try this case you would unanimously and
unhesitatingly acquit my clients, and transfer the perjured
constable from the witness-table to the dock."

In a row the Englishmen nodded their assent, while the
poor Removables looked on in dismay. Then they retired
to consider their decision, and to the amazement of every-
one acquitted the accused.

None were more astonished at the result than the accused
themselves. When the magistrates retired Mr. Cox went
out to have a drink, the last, as he whispered to me, that he
would have the chance of having for some months."

By the time he got back the case was over and the
decision announced.

" How much ? " he asked.

" Nothing," I replied ; " you are acquitted."

He laughed in my face. The thing was incredible. I had
to swear it was true before he would believe me.

THE HUMOURS OF COERCION 159

One incident in connection with this trial exhibits the
comic character of the government of Ireland in those days.
Some hundreds of police, with rifles and fowling-pieces,
were drafted into Dundalk where the trial was heard. They
were invading troops in a hostile country, rigidly boycotted
by all the inhabitants of the town whom they had come
" to protect from intimidation/' Outcasts and pariahs,
food, drink and every form of accommodation was refused
them.

On the other hand, the " criminals " were honoured
guests, feted and cheered by the entire population. The
day before the trial they were invited to lunch with the
Mayor, and I, as their counsel, was included in the invitation.
In the midst of the sumptuous repast a mysterious message
was conveyed to the Mayor, who presided. He left the
room for a moment, and after lunch he desired a private
consultation with the criminals and myself.

It turned out that he had had an interview with the Inspector
in charge of the police. To understand the incongruous
character of the Inspector's mission to the Mayor, it must
be remembered that Mr. Balfour's policy, as explained to
Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, was to treat the political opponents
captured in the net of coercion as degraded criminals. That
was all very well for Mr. Balfour living in another country,
but the home atmosphere of admiration in which those
men were the most honoured of the community was too
strong. The Inspector's better feeling revolted against
conveying two respected Members of Parliament on a
common outside car from the court to the railway station
on their way to jail, which no one doubted was their ultimate
destination.

He applied at the principal hotel for a carriage and pair,
but the hotel proprietor curtly refused to have any inter-
course with the pariah. His interview with the Mayor was
to induce him to plead with Mr. Gill, as Member for the
Division, to allow the boycott to be raised for the purpose of
procuring a carriage for himself and his fellow-criminal.
Mr. Gill graciously consented, and the carriage was waiting
at the court-house when the trial concluded, and drove

i6o RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

the criminals through cheering crowds not to the station on
their way to jail, but to the residence of the Mayor.

By far the most interesting and exciting of the Coercion
cases in which I was engaged was a trial of Mr. William
O'Brien at Loughrea, in which I had Mr. Healy as colleague
for the defence.

After the Coercion Act had been some years in full swing,
Mr. Balfour, in a reckless moment, boasted at a public
meeting that " the Irish National League was a thing of
the past."

Mr. O'Brien instantly took up the challenge. He called a
public meeting at Loughrea, which was perhaps the best
proclaimed district in Ireland. An enormous crowd attended
the meeting from all parts of the County of Galway. But
an army of soldiers and constabulary was poured into the
town, the demonstration was proclaimed and suppressed,
and Mr. O'Brien was prosecuted by Mr. Balfour for attending
a meeting of the very league which Mr. Balfour himself had
just declared to be a thing of the past.

Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt accompanied O'Brien and his
counsel and solicitor to Loughrea. In his book on " The
Land War in Ireland/' to which allusion has already been
made, he writes : —

" April 26. We started by an early train for Woodtown
(Loughrea), O'Brien, Healy, Chance, Bodkin and myself. A
merry party we were. You would think we were going to a
wedding rather than to a trial, but the Irish have the
blessing of high spirits and no one more so than O'Brien."

I remember well as we walked together up a long, steep
hill to ease the horse, O'Brien picked himself a nosegay of
primroses under the hedgerows, declaring that he was not
going to abandon the sweetest of wild flowers to the enemy —
this when he was on the way to an inevitable sentence of
six months' imprisonment.

Our line of defence was peculiar. To constitute a meeting
of a suppressed Branch of the League it was necessary, in
the words of the Coercion Act, that the member of the
League sought to be incriminated should have attended
" as such."

THE HUMOURS OF COERCION 161

Day after day for weeks we produced a battalion of
witnesses, who each in his turn swore : "I am a member of
the National League. Every respectable man in the district
is a member of the League. I attended the meeting, but I
did not attend it as such."

" Why did you attend ? " was the next question.

" To make a liar of Balfour."

Our object was, of course, to cover the whole proceedings
with ridicule, and we succeeded. An interminable pro-
cession of witnesses appeared on the table who all swore
substantially the same thing.

We endeavoured, as far as possible, to diversify the
proceedings. Mr. Healy and I had a standing bet of six-
pence as to which of us would keep our witness (we examined
them turn about) longest on the witness table replying to
wholly absurd and irrelevant questions.

We carried the game on openly in the face of the court,
with watches on the table in front of us, and we passed the
money, or took it, as we lost or won.

Every evening the accused and his counsel were hospitably
entertained by the Most Rev. Dr. Duggan, the best bishop and
the best Irishman I have ever met. To a suggestion made
by O'Brien one evening at dinner that we were intruding
unwarrantably on his hospitality, the bishop replied by
calling out to the factotum who waited behind his chair :

" Pat, kill another pig."

Meanwhile the unhappy Removables vainly strove to
stem the overwhelming flood of evidence that we poured
upon them.

To all their remonstrance Mr. Healy or myself blandly
replied that if we had succeeded in convincing them of our
client's innocence they had only to say so, otherwise we must
continue to offer the evidence until they were convinced.

After three weeks of this burlesque, one morning the
Removables appeared in court, pale and trembling, to
announce that the vast accumulated pile of depositions
had been stolen overnight.

Mr. Healy had before this been called away to Dublin,
and I was then in sole charge. I was surprised, indignant

M

162 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

and incredulous. The depositions, I declared, would
conclusively establish my client's innocence on appeal.
They were in charge of the court, how had they disappeared ?
I demanded an opportunity of examining the magistrates on
oath. As I anticipated, the longsuffering Removables were
indignant at this suggestion, and refusing further proof or
explanation, proceeded to begin the trial de novo.

This was exactly what I wanted. I cross-examined no
witness for the Crown, and called no witnesses for the
defence. The case was over in a few hours, and the accused
sentenced to six months with hard labour.

But there was still left to us the right of appeal before a
division of the superior court, presided over by the Lord
Chief Baron, the most conscientious of lawyers.

Under the Coercion Act the accused was entitled to have
produced on appeal the whole of the depositions in the
court below. The depositions were, of course, not forth-
coming, and there was no proof or explanation of their
disappearance.

After a long argument the case was adjourned to enable
the Removables to produce the depositions, and we heard
no more of the charge. All Ireland laughed at the collapse
of the prosecution.

I have been informed on excellent authority that the one
thing in the whole Coercion campaign that really irritated
Mr. Balfour was the libel action brought against him by
the midwife Peggy Dillon. But I am sure that he has long
since forgotten his annoyance and is now ready to laugh at
the incident. It happened in this way : —

In his speech on the introduction of the Coercion Act,
Mr. Balfour took occasion to refer to the alleged misconduct
of a midwife in the West of Ireland named Peggy Dillon.
He detailed the alleged refusal of Peggy to perform the
functions of her office for the wife of a land-grabber, with a
doleful horror at the obduracy of the midwife and with a
sympathetic tenderness for the patient that awakened
roars of laughter in an irreverent House — laughter which
the tender-hearted Secretary indignantly rebuked. Nothing
further was heard of the incident for some little time. The

Cartoon from " United Ireland," May 12, 1888

AT IT AGAIN

Balfourruns away with the depositions for O'Brien's defences from the Loughrea court-
house, as he ran away with his clothes from the prison cell at Tullamore.

p. 162

THE HUMOURS OF COERCION 163

Coercion Act passed, and Mr. Balfour thought no more of
the slandered midwife.

But trouble was brewing. A sworn contradiction was
first published in the papers. Of this he took no heed. A
letter from her solicitor demanding an apology was similarly
disregarded ; then on April 27th, 1887, I was instructed to
apply to the courts for liberty to serve a writ out of the
jurisdiction. The following are some interesting extracts
from the midwife's affidavit on which the motion was
founded : —

"That I am informed and believe that the intended
defendant, on divers times and occasions, spoke and pub-
lished of and concerning me in my business, profession and
calling, certain false and slanderous statements, to wit —
that I refused to attend a woman in her confinement, on the
ground that she was the wife of a man who worked for a
boycotted person, and that I yielded to intimidation or
undue influence in said refusal, and said defendant made use
of said alleged refusal by me as the principal argument in
favour of passing a Coercion Act for Ireland.

" There is no truth whatever in such statements. As the
said intended defendant must have well known, it is the
custom in my profession to be engaged some time before the
event, and on the day on which this woman's husband came
for me I was called to another patient, who had previously
engaged my services, and whom, according to the rules of my
profession, I was obliged to attend.

" That the publication of the said slanders by the said
intended defendant has greatly injured my character and
interfered with me in the pursuit of my profession and
calling, and greatly decreased my practice and emoluments,
and exposed me to ridicule and contempt from my neigh-
bours, who are for the most part Nationalists and who are,
naturally, indignant that my alleged unfeeling conduct
should have brought discredit on the Irish cause, and should
be urged by the said intended defendant as the main ground
for a Bill for the Coercion of all Ireland."

It is easy to imagine the storm of laughter the application
created in the court. But Judge Andrews, though a pro-

164 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

found lawyer, was the most unsuspecting and courteous
of men. By a miracle I kept my countenance while I
argued the case, and he listened with the utmost gravity
while the court shook with laughter. Ultimately he suggested
that we should file further affidavits.

I was told that when one of his brother judges questioned
him as to the cause of the row in court, which he had
overheard in his robing-room, he could offer no explana-
tion.

" A very interesting case on service out of jurisdiction
was argued by Bodkin," he said, but he could not remember
the names of the parties to the action.

I decided not to renew the application, but to have Mr.
Balfour served personally with the writ when he next
came to Ireland. Then there was a most amusing interlude.
The despotic ruler of Ireland was frightened from the
country by a midwife. He had boasted that he had made
the Queen's writ run in Ireland, now he ran from it. The
situation naturally created excitement and amusement,
and evoked much satirical comment and many cartoons in
the National newspapers.

The following account of the service of the writ, which
appeared in the Freeman's Journal, September zoth, 1887,
reads like an incident in one of Lever's novels. Whenever
the Chief Secretary paid a flying visit to Ireland the process-
server in charge of the writ strove hard to effect service, but
was constantly baffled by officials, who, evidently suspecting
his mission, persistently misinformed him about the where-
abouts of Mr. Balfour. This is how the writ was served
at last : —

" His first attempt/' wrote the Freeman's Journal, " was
on the Chief Secretary's Lodge, which seemed to be deserted
except for a few policemen loitering round the grounds.
There he failed to effect an entrance, but he was more
successful at the Viceregal Lodge, where the footman
confessed that Mr. Balfour was upstairs in bed. But after
a long wait the poor process-server was informed that the
Chief Secretary had just left through a side door for parts
unknown. Still determined to effect service if possible, he

Cartoon from "United Ireland," May 7, 1887

MINISTER AND MIDWIFE

Miss Maggie Dillon (midwife and monthly nurse) : " I'll tache ye to take away an
honest woman's character."

p. 164

THE HUMOURS OF COERCION 165

pursued him to the Castle, where he learned that there were
strict orders that nobody was to be allowed to see Mr.
Balfour. He thereupon adopted the ingenious stratagem
of declaring that he was the bearer of an urgent message
from the Lord Chancellor to the Chief Secretary, which was
literally true, as the preamble of a writ is a printed " greeting
from the Lord Chancellor," though, needless to say, the
process-server did not explain the nature of the message.
Admitted at last into the room where the Chief Secretary
was engaged with some officials, he had no difficulty in
recognizing him from the cartoons in the Nationalist papers.

" Nothing could exceed the Chief Secretary's annoyance
when he was presented with the copy of the writ. He first
turned pale and then flushed scarlet, and made a motion as
though he would throw the document on the ground and
then trample on it. With a great effort he restrained himself,
and directed that it should be taken to Sir William Kaye,
who was then acting as Under Secretary, and who instructed
a solicitor to appear for Mr. Balfour/'

The successful service was celebrated in United Ireland
by a cartoon, " You Dirty Boy," and some doggerel lines :

There was a young man of position

Who set out on a mud-slinging mission.

Having slandered a midwife for fun

He instantly started to run,

But she caught him before he could mizzle.

" With scrubbing-brush rough as a thistle,"

Said bould Peggy Dillon,

" You mane little villain,

I'll scrub you as clane as a whistle."

The writ was followed in due course by a statement of
claim, of which the following is a specimen paragraph : —

" By reason of the said libel and slander by the defendant
of the plaintiff, the plaintiff was deeply injured in her
personal and professional character, and credit and reputa-
tion as a woman and a midwife, and a large number of
persons who had theretofore patronized the said plaintiff
in her said business and profession ceased to do so, and she
was exposed to much odium amongst her neighbours for
having by her alleged inhuman conduct afforded a serious

166 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

argument for the passing of a perpetual Coercion Act for
Ireland."

Not merely through Great Britain, but round the world,
the news ran of the approaching trial between the Chief
Secretary and the midwife. But the Chief Secretary, much
to the disappointment of the laughter-loving public,
managed to escape the crowning absurdity of a trial in the
courts.

An application was made on his behalf that the action
should be dismissed on the ground that the words com-
plained of, having been spoken in Parliament, were, whether
true or false, absolutely privileged. An enormous Bar,
including the two law officers of the Crown, were retained at
the public expense to fight the battle of the Chief Secretary
against the midwife. For three long days we solemnly
argued the case. At one stage it looked as if the midwife
would have the best of it. A pretty clear intimation was
conveyed to the advisers of the Chief Secretary that if he
did not amend his affidavit judgment would go against
him. At this he was disposed to sulk at first, but thought
better of it. The second affidavit was made, and the Chief
Secretary had a hairbreadth escape from the infuriated
midwife. The case is elaborately reported to the extent of
twenty full pages in the official Irish Law Reports, where the
joint names of the Chief Secretary go down to posterity
together as a leading authority on the law of Parliamentary
privilege.

It is, however, only fair to remember that during his
stormy career in Ireland, Mr. Balfour conferred one great
boon on the country which almost entitles him to rank with
Sir Walter Raleigh as a public benefactor. If Sir Walter
introduced the potato, Mr. Balfour introduced golf to
an appreciative people, and both grew and flourished
with an amazing rapidity and vigour in the congenial
Irish soil.

Before Mr. Balfour's coming the very name of golf was
unknown. I recall with shame that the game was ridiculed in
the columns of United Ireland, and the name " Mr. Golf our "
regarded as a term of reproach. The few votaries who first

THE HUMOURS OF COERCION 167

followed his lead and formed the Royal Golf Club of Dolly-
mount, with their caddies and their bags of queer-looking
clubs, were subjected to merciless ridicule. Nationalists
stood out for a long time against the game, but, one by one,
myself among the number, they yielded to its inexplicable,
irresistible fascination. To-day there is no town in Ireland
that hasn't its golf club. Dublin is one of the most en-
thusiastic golf centres in the world. I could count over
thirty golf clubs in full swing within a radius of a dozen
miles of the Irish metropolis.

For all golf is a great game ; for elderly people like myself
it is the only game. It not merely affords enjoyment, but it
enforces exercise and fresh air which the doctor can only
prescribe. When Irishmen are tempted to • recall with
bitterness Mr. Balfour's regime, they should never forget
they are indebted to him for the priceless benefaction of
golf.

Amongst its by-products it is brightening the day of rest
and eff ecting its redemption from the thraldom of black
black. At first all golf clubs were closed on Sunday, now
they are all open. It was in the intermediate period that
Mr. James Campbell, K.C., taxed by some Sabbatarian
electors of Trinity College with playing golf on Sunday, set
up his standard of geographical morality, and declared he
never played near Dublin, and in the country only when
he required rest from arduous labour.

CHAPTER XVII
THE PARNELL SPLIT

Parnell's first speech, stumbling and incoherent — Growth of eloquence
and power — An unrivalled leader — The O'Shea scandal — Meeting in
Leinster Hall — The storming of United Ireland — Insuppressible,
a one-man daily paper — Founding the National Press — Capturing
the Freeman's Journal.

in Ireland slowly collapsed. Everywhere
it is ridicule that kills ; but this is essentially true in
Ireland, where the sense of humour is so strong. Not merely
in Ireland, however, but in England, too, as the by-
elections showed, the tide was flowing strongly in favour
of Home Rule for Ireland. No one doubted that at the
next election Mr. Gladstone would return to power with a
majority that would completely overawe the House of
Lords. Home Rule seemed perfectly safe, when, as so often
happened in the history of the Irish movement, a crushing
blow fell from a wholly unexpected quarter. .

Charles Stewart Parnell was at the time in a position of
unexampled power in Ireland. O'Connell himself never
held such unquestioned sway. He had created an Irish
party, rigidly disciplined and full of fighting force, and held
it together in the stress of a tremendous conflict. His popu-
larity was enhanced a hundredfold by the failure of the
cowardly attack of The Times.

It is not my intention to enter into a detailed account of
the rise and fall of Parnell as an Irish leader. Certainly no
one from the opening of his career could have anticipated
its zenith or its close. Of qualities supposed to be typically
Irish he had none. A Protestant landlord, cold, shy and
reserved, and at first almost inarticulate, he seemed to
labour under a disabling handicap for an Irish political
career.

168

Photo by Maitll and FoX) London.

CHARLES STEWART PARNEI.L

p. 168

THE PARNELL SPLIT 169

In the General Election of 1874 he decided to stand in
the National interest for his native county of Wicklow, but
being at the time High Sheriff of the county he was officially
incapacitated from becoming a candidate, and the Govern-
ment refusing to permit his resignation — an almost unheard-
of act of discourtesy in modern political warfare — he had
to abandon his purpose. A month later the appointment
of Colonel Taylor as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
in the newly formed Conservative administration created a
vacancy in the County of Dublin. Although it was a forlorn
hope to fight a seat in the then condition of the register, the
National party felt bound to contest it, if a suitable candi-
date could be found.

Mr. Parnell offered himself, and to a hopeless fight was
added a hopeless candidate. Almost my first task as a
reporter on the Freeman's Journal was to report this young
landlord Nationalist, whom nobody at the time took
seriously. In a large experience I never before or since
heard a poorer speech.

After the usual preliminary canters by the chairman and
routine speakers, the candidate rose to address the meeting.
" Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," he said, " I wish to offer
myself as a candidate for your county. I desire to represent
your county in Parliament. I feel it would be an honour to
represent your county in Parliament, and therefore I have
come forward to offer myself as candidate for your
county."

Throughout his voice was faltering and his words con-
fused, and after this brief and striking exordium he hesitated,
stood silent on the platform for one long minute and sat
down. This was the man who afterwards proved himself
so cogent a debater in the House of Commons, and such a
master of the feelings and passions of his audience on a
platform.

Only a few years afterwards I heard him deliver in the
market square in Galway one of the most powerful platform
speeches that I have ever heard. It was there he fastened
on Mr. Forster the nickname of " Buckshot," which stuck
to him to the hour of his death. There were people who

170 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

thought Parnell cold. I could never think so. He lacked,
indeed, the blaze and smoke of the flamboyant orator, but
there was a calm, intense white-heat of earnestness in his
words that, in my mind, was far more effective. The con-
trast between his break-down in North Dublin and his later
triumphs was as complete as the contrast between Disraeli's
collapse in the House of Commons and his subsequent
mastery of that assembly.

My early impression of Parnell is confirmed by Judge
Adams in an account given by him of his first meeting with
the Irish leader.

" One day in the 'seventies/' he wrote, " I happened to
drop into the reporters' room of the Freeman office. I found
there one of the staff who had been detailed to report a
meeting in the country. He had missed his train and inter-
cepted the principal orator, who was dictating his speech to
him. This gentleman at once attracted my attention. He
was young, good-looking, of aristocratic appearance, and
talked with the accent of an English University man. He
was, in short, a ' swell.' But the speech had nothing of the
' swell ' about it. In a strange, halting way he was dictating
a violent, aggressive and fighting speech on the Nationalist
side.

" I left the office without discovering who the orator was,
and dismissed the incident with the thought that here was
another of those young men of family who have occasion-
ally fluttered round the national flag, but who soon retreated
to seek some more congenial sphere. I little thought that
I had seen for the first time that day a man who was to
rank in the history of the nineteenth century with Bismarck
and Gladstone, Lincoln and Cavour, a man so important
that an event in his domestic life was to divide a united
nation, to profoundly affect the fate of parties and the
course of politics, and to be discussed with interest in every
corner of Christendom."

When I next met Mr. Parnell he was the leader of the
Irish people, and had already begun to assert his supreme
authority in the party and the country. It was on the
occasion of the selection of a National candidate for the

THE PARNELL SPLIT 171

County of Galway. There was a strong objection, especially
among the priests, to the candidature of that sterling
Nationalist, Matt Harris, whom Mr. Parnell was determined
should be selected. The priests, as was their custom, held
a meeting before the convention, and they honoured me by
unanimously nominating me for the Tuam Division, for
which Matt Harris was a candidate. I declined the honour.
Afterwards the convention was held, Mr. Parnell pre-
siding. In my whole life I never saw anything finer than
the force and dexterity with which he bent the stormy
assembly to his will, and secured at last, alike from
priests and people, the unanimous nomination of his
candidate.

Some days later a message was conveyed to me by
William O'Brien from Parnell that a seat elsewhere was at
my disposal, if I desired to enter Parliament. It was a
tempting offer, but I saw no way of supporting myself in
London, so my poverty, and not my will, refused.

My last meeting with Parnell was under very different
circumstances. For some years political gossip had been
busy with the mysterious periodical disappearance of the
Irish leader, often when his presence was most needed. The
rumours took more definite form when he planted Captain
O'Shea on the electors of Galway in defiance of the protest
of Messrs. Biggar and Healy.

Still, despite those vague and fitful warnings, the pro-
ceedings in the O'Shea and Parnell divorce case came like
a thunderbolt on the people of Ireland.

Their first impulse was, naturally, to rally to their leader,
especially as he was bitterly assailed by the Coercionists.
Nationalist Ireland felt like Moore's reckless heroine, who
sang :—

I know not, I care not, if guilt's in thy heart,
I know that I love thee whatever thou art.

At that time I was in sole charge of United Ireland.
William O'Brien and John Dillon, with others of the party
evading a Coercion conviction, slipped away to France in a
fishing-boat, and thence to America, and were engaged in
a triumphant mission on behalf of the Irish movement.

172 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

I felt my responsibility deeply, for United Ireland led
National opinion in Ireland, and I was sorely puzzled in
what direction it should lead.

From the first I realized that my duty was to the nation,
rather than to the leader whose conduct had imperilled the
movement entrusted to his charge. But at the outset it
seemed that Ireland could be best served by the defence of
Parnell and the maintenance of his leadership. A great
meeting had been arranged in the Leinster Hall, Dublin,
in support of the evicted tenants, whom Mr. T. D. Sullivan
finely described as the " wounded soldiers of the land
war."

This meeting was at the last moment turned into a
demonstration in favour of Mr. Parnell' s leadership. The
speech of the night was delivered by Mr. T. M. Healy amid
uproarious applause. I never heard, even from him, a speech
more pungent or more powerful. " Mr. Parnell," he de-
clared, amid tremendous cheering, " was not so much a
man as an institution, an institution that must be preserved
at any cost." There was sound wisdom, he declared, in the
nautical injunction, " Don't speak to the man at the wheel."
The resolution in favour of Mr. Parnell's leadership was
unanimously carried, and a few days later he was unani-
mously elected by the party, only one man, Mr. J. Jordan,
even hinting that an explanation of the divorce-court pro-
ceedings might be desirable.

Naturally, I took the same line in United Ireland. Alluding
to the outcry that was raised by the Coercionists, Lord
Salisbury at their head, I wrote that " Ireland refused to
throw him to the English wolves who were howling for his
destruction." The phrase was afterwards embodied by
Mr. Parnell in his manifesto.

But the day after his election by the party came the
news that Mr. Gladstone had declared that his position,
with which Home Rule was bound up, would be a nullity
if Mr. Parnell retained the leadership of the Irish party.
By some fatality this view, conveyed in a letter to Mr.
Morley, was not communicated to the Irish party before his
re-election, in the mistaken hope that Mr. Parnell would

THE PARNELL SPLIT 173

voluntarily retire. On hearing of it, the Irish party in-
stantly reconsidered their hasty decision, and after a stormy
discussion, protracted over several days, they, by an over-
whelming majority, deposed him from the chair and elected
the vice-chairman, Mr. Justin McCarthy, in his room, with
a committee of six to assist him. Their view was endorsed
by the American delegates, including John Dillon and
William O'Brien.

I do not propose to reopen that fiery controversy, of which
the ashes are still smouldering. Looking back on it, each
side may find much justification for their opponents to
which they were blind while the conflict still raged. I shall
touch only on the incidents in the controversy in which I
was personally involved, and which may not be without
interest when the history of that stormy period comes to
be written in detail.

In United Ireland I followed the majority of the party
and obeyed the specific instructions cabled by William
O'Brien. Personally I was perfectly convinced of the
wisdom of their action. A declaration from the Catholic
hierarchy made it plain that Parnell's leadership must
alienate their support. In the first editorial in United
Ireland I wrote under the heading " Ireland or Parnell ? " :
" There is but one sentiment that can master the fidelity
of the Irish party to their great leader — fidelity to their
great cause. He has strong claims on them ; Ireland has
stronger. If Home Rule is to be helped by his leadership,
he must stay ; if Home Rule is to be hurt, he must go."
I went on to show, in the words cabled to me by William
O'Brien, that Parnell's leadership " meant destruction for
the Irish movement."

Again the following week I wrote a succession of editorials,
opposing on various grounds Mr. Parnell's continued leader-
ship.

But meanwhile Mr. Parnell had rapidly realized the im-
portance of United Ireland in the battle that was to be
fought, and determined at all hazards to capture it. In
the small hours of the morning, having concluded my pro-
tracted work in the office and left the paper ready to go to

174 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

press, I returned to my house in Great Denmark Street for
a few hours' sleep.

I was roused by a message, by whom delivered I have
never ascertained, that Mr. Parnell was at the office. Re-
turning with all speed, I found Mr. Parnell and a number of
his followers, including Mr. Pierce O'Mahony and Mr. Leamy,
in possession of the editor's room.

Mr. Parnell looked pale and weary, but resolute as ever.
In a cold, passionless tone he told me he was much dis-
satisfied (and no wonder !) with the last issue of United
Ireland, and as one of the principal proprietors and
directors he felt it necessary to dismiss the editor for
having neglected to submit the leading articles to his
revision.

I replied that I had not hoped that the last issue of the
paper would please him, and that I could not recognize his
authority nor accept his dismissal. I was there, I said, as
the deputy of William O'Brien, whose instructions I had
obeyed. Since its foundation William O'Brien had acted
as founder, conductor, and editor and proprietor of the
paper, and had repeatedly been made responsible for
it under the Coercion Act. I had never heard of Mr. Parnell
in connection with the paper, and I would acknowledge no
authority but Mr. O'Brien's.

Mr. Parnell declared he had the legal right, and I replied
that that remained to be proved.

Thereupon Mr. Parnell, who had grown more excited as
the discussion proceeded, shouted :

" I now dismiss you, and order you to leave ! "

I again replied : "I decline to leave, unless compelled by
legal process or overwhelming force."

At that he called out to one of his friends : " Send for
Mr. Glancy!"

Mr. John Glancy, who was then sub-Sheriff of Dublin
and a violent partisan of Parnell's, arrived on the scene
leading an excited mob, who surrounded me with threaten-
ing shouts and gestures. " Throw him out ! " they cried.
" Pitch him downstairs ! " and for a moment I thought I
would make my exit through the window instead of the

THE PARNELL SPLIT 175

door, and did not at all relish the look of the spiked area
railings below. Turning to Mr. Parnell, I said :

" This answers the description of ' overwhelming force/ "
and I walked to the door.

To my surprise and delight the crowd made way for me,
and I was allowed to pass out unmolested. After I had left,
one of the clerks in the office, a powerful fighting man
named O'Dwyer, wrenched the leg from the stool on which
he was sitting, and shouting, " Here's Tipperary ! " held
back the mob until I was safe in the street.

Later on my friend Father Healy summarized the incident
by the apt scriptural quotation :

" And the lot fell on Matthias/'

Mr. Parnell and his friends promptly seized the issue of
United Ireland that was ready for distribution in the office
and destroyed it.

But some copies escaped their hands, and, assisted by
Mr. T. M. Healy and Mr. William Murphy, I succeeded in
producing a facsimile issue next day under the title
Suppressed United Ireland.

Then followed the strangest newspaper enterprise in
which any man was ever involved. It was determined to
reprint in the Irish Catholic office a daily edition of
Suppressed United Ireland. The printing machine was one
of those old-fashioned affairs with tapes and pulleys that
flaps the paper down on the type, turns it like a pancake
and flaps it down again, printing first one side and then the
other. I was the entire literary, editorial, and managerial
staff of this new daily.

At an early stage an injunction was obtained from the
Vice-Chancellor against our printing the paper as United
Ireland. My vote for disobeying the injunction and
going to prison as the easiest and most effective answer
was overruled, and the issue was continued as " Insup-
pressible," a title borrowed from a cable of William
O'Brien's.

It was the toughest job I ever tackled. No money would
pay for the work I did, and I was paid none. For the
greater part of the time, as I have said, I was the entire

176 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

staff of a daily paper ; but towards the end I had in the
reporting department the able and zealous assistance of
Mr. H. O'Connor, a host in himself.

During the three weeks the paper lasted I worked steadily
sixteen hours a day — real hard work at high pressure.
Newspaper writers will understand when I mention that
with my own hand I wrote daily in leaders and paragraphs
a full newspaper page of editorial comment. In addition
I superintended the distribution of the paper, which was
" published " at my private residence, where all correspond-
ence was addressed. Insuppressible was probably the only
newspaper ever published for which the demand exceeded
the supply. The clumsy printing press, working all day and
night, could not turn out the papers half fast enough for
clamouring readers in town and country. I have still piles
of telegrams from newsagents: "Send me five hundred
copies/' " Send me a thousand copies." " Send me the
latest date you can." "Send me any date." There were
no "returns."

When, later on, I was anxious to preserve a bound file of
this remarkable paper I had the utmost difficulty in pro-
curing the requisite copies.

The strain told on my health, though the excitement kept
me going. I could not sleep without narcotics, which, to
guard against a special craving, were varied each night.
During the three weeks I lost a stone and a half of my weight,
and I had one very singular experience. Coming from the
office for a brief spell to attend a special meeting of the
committee of a new organization, " The National Federa-
tion," started by Insuppressible, I was discussing some
question of policy with Mr. William Murphy and Mr.
Healy when suddenly, as if something snapped in my brain,
I dropped down in a dead faint on the floor. I awoke as
suddenly as I fell, picked myself up and resumed the con-
versation where it had broken off, unconscious of the break.
Three times this happened before they packed me home with
a friend in a cab. A few hours' sleep pulled me together ;
there was no leisure to get knocked out, for Insuppressible
must come out as usual next morning.

THE PARNELL SPLIT 177

A telegram from Boulogne from William O'Brien luckily
put an end to Insuppressible before Insuppressible put an
end to its editor. Honestly, I am convinced it was a choice
of the paper's death or mine, and I am glad the paper was
the victim. From all parts of the country came urgent
entreaties to continue, and generous promises of financial
aid, but I was having none.

The National Press, a well-organized, perfectly equipped
paper with capital at its back, after a brief interval, followed
Insuppressible as the organ of the Nationalist majority
opposed to Mr. Parnell, and I was invited to become
chief leader writer on the new paper. The prospect did not
attract me. I had had a full dose of newspaper drudgery,
and was anxious to get back to the easier and pleasanter
work of the Bar. But my colleagues were urgent, the fight
still raged, and it was impossible for me to drop out without
the appearance of desertion. So once again Fate flung me
back into a newspaper office.

I shall not readily forget the first issue of the National
Press. It is an exciting business, the bringing out of a new
newspaper. The whole staff, of which Mr. Healy was a
member, watched in the grey dawn the printing of the first
issue. As the huge cylinder of paper began to revolve and
the broad, white ribbon was whirled into the machinery to
drop out on the far side, " Tip, tip, tip," quicker than a
man could count, neatly printed and folded newspapers,
Mr. Healy exclaimed :

" This is the winding-sheet of Parnellism ! "

My work of leader writer on the National Press was not
exactly easy, but it was mere idleness compared with my
experience on the Insuppressible.

About this time I had an interesting and encouraging
proof that my work had not been wasted. The Nationalists
of Liverpool were good enough to entertain me at a public
banquet with the flattering assurance that Insuppressible
had held the movement together in that town during the
first strain of the Parnell controversy.

The National Press was eventually amalgamated with the
Freeman's Journal, which had come round to the same

178 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

view, and the National Press staff went over bodily to
take direction and possession of the amalgamated news-
paper.

Mr. Healy triumphantly declared we " had captured the
Freeman in the open sea and put a prize crew aboard/'

CHAPTER XVIII
PARLIAMENT

A lively Irish election — Hard fight in North Roscommon — Speeches under
fire — Blockade and rescue — A fight for a platform — " The Boy " — Per-
sonation a fine art — A pleasant surprise — Miscounting the votes —
A narrow win — M.P.

A LITTLE later I will have something to say of my
experience as the chief writer on the Freeman's
Journal, but first let me tell as briefly as I can how I came
to enter Parliament, and what I saw and heard during my
sojourn for a single memorable session in the British House
of Commons.

The tragic death of Mr. Parnell did not quench the
Parnell controversy ; it was still raging fiercely at the next
dissolution of Parliament, and the Parnellites prepared to
contest the seats in which they conceived there was even an
off-chance of success. Amongst the few seats they made
certain of winning, the most certain, in their view, was the
constituency of North Roscommon. Nowhere was loyalty
to Parnell more fervent, nowhere was the indignation
against his " betrayers " more fierce. It was naturally hard
to find a candidate to lead this forlorn hope against the
Parnellite in that division.

Mr. Healy urged me to take the field. I protested that
my home was in Dublin, I had a wife and family to support
and no money to spare ; while, on the other hand, I had
an insuperable objection under any circumstances to accept
salary from the Parliamentary fund.

" Don't bother about that/' he retorted ; " there is not
the ghost of a chance of your winning the seat. All that is
wanted is to put up a good fight."

So I went into the contest as a forlorn hope, not expecting
to win, and at the outset not wishing to win. But before

179

i8o RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

I was half-way through the spirit of the fight seized me, and
I would have given my right arm for victory.

I have told the story of that exciting contest, with a little
artistic exaggeration, in one of my novels, " White Magic,"
but perhaps some of the most curious incidents are worth
repeating with the exaggeration stripped off.

My popular opponent, the veteran James O' Kelly, fought
a desperate fight. By an extraordinary alliance all the
Unionists and all the extreme Nationalists were on his side.
Our meetings were attacked by violent crowds, and many
of my speeches were delivered under a fusillade of stones.
Throughout the contest I always carried a blackthorn, and
all my followers were similarly equipped. Sometimes in
the morning before sallying forth I would tap my head
lightly with the knob of the shillelagh, and try to fancy what
the blow would feel like with the whole strength of a strong
man's arm behind it.

Very early in the fight I noticed one figure that was never
absent from any of my meetings — a tall, broad-shouldered,
clean-limbed young fellow with the strength and activity
of a tiger, who was known to local fame as " The Boy/'
When I made a point that pleased him, he would leap three
feet into the air and wave his blackthorn over his head with
a shout of approval that did a speaker's heart good to hear.

Boyle, the chief town of the division, was my head-
quarters, though in Boyle, as in the other towns of the
division, the majority was Parnellite. The nomination day
at Boyle was chosen for a trial of strength between the
parties. Both sides posted up green placards inviting our
friends to " assemble in their thousands," and both sides
concluded with the national prayer, " God save Ireland."

But the Parnellites contrived at the last moment to steal
a march on us. What country contingents they could
collect they brought in quietly the night before the nomina-
tion, armed them from an arsenal of blackthorns in the
suburbs, completely captured the town, and took forcible
possession of the platform we had erected for our meet-
ing. From early morning they paraded the streets, inviting
us to come out and be beaten. About noon I made a dash

PARLIAMENT 181

for the court-house to lodge my nomination paper, and by
a miracle got back without a scratch. The day went by
slowly. Both parties had fixed two o'clock as the hour of
the meeting, but there seemed little prospect of our side
fulfilling our engagement.

Our opponents whiled away the time by parading in
front of the hotel in which I was imprisoned, cheering for
Parnell and groaning for " the traitors." That was hard
enough to bear, but it was worse still when they were all
drawn away to the platform in the market-place — our plat-
form— to make ready for their meeting, leaving the streets
wholly deserted.

Sitting at the window of the hotel, I was suddenly aware
of a faint sound in the far distance. A mere palpitation of
the air it seemed at first, something to be rather felt than
heard. Gradually the sound grew in volume, like the dull
boom of the distant sea or the even tramp of marching feet.
Nearer it came, and I heard the deep roll of many drums
slightly flavoured with the shrill shrieking of the fifes.
Listening with all my ear, I caught the tune at last, the fine
old Irish air " The wearin' of the green."

Half a dozen friends, who were sitting round as disconso-
late as myself, leaped to their feet, and shouted, " The boys
are coming ! "

The head of the procession came sweeping round the
corner of the street like a huge serpent whose hinder bulk
still wound far out along the country road.

They cheered vigorously as they passed the hotel and, in
the pause that followed the cheer, again the faint tramp
and distant drums were heard from a different quarter, and
another and a larger crowd came pouring in.

When the approaching crowds caught sight of each other
their cheers broke out like thunder from the threatening
clouds. I heard my own name called by a thousand voices,
and gladly sallied out from my hotel.

Forthwith we marched forth in united strength to re-
capture our own platform and overthrow the Parnellites,
but were met by a double row of policemen drawn across the
slope to keep the hostile crowds apart.

182 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Standing on a chair in front of the police, the magistrate
in charge, pale with excitement, began reading the Riot Act,
but his voice was drowned by a savage cheer. A shower of
stones came over the heads of the police from the Parnellites
on the hill, and in a moment I found myself in the midst of
a charging crowd that broke headlong on the opposing line.

Luckily for us the police were only half in earnest. A
volley of Mr. Forster's " merciful " buckshot at the moment
would have cost a score of lives ; not a shot was fired. Half
a dozen drew their dirks, but for the rest baton met black-
thorn. The din was tremendous as wood rattled against
wood. I saw " The Boy " push on right in front of me into
the thick of the melee, strong and active as a young panther.
His shillelagh flew like a flail, and at every stroke a police-
man went down. Through the centre of the line he broke
his way, and was almost clear of the police when he was
stabbed by a dirk in the thigh, and at the same moment
whacked on the head with a baton. He tumbled under the
feet of the charging crowd, whose weight and impetus broke
through the police as a ship's prow breaks through the
waves, scattering them on either side. The Parnellites
stood their ground gallantly, but our crowd, outnumbering
them three to one, flooded the market-place, sweeping all
before them.

When I came to myself I was standing on the platform
on the top of the slope, with a great sea of faces stretched
out below. I was out of breath, and clutched my black-
thorn so hard that the knobs hurt my hand. While I spoke
there were " excursions and alarms " between the opposing
forces. The police, with splendid impartiality, kept the
Parnellites back as they had tried to keep us back at first.
But now and then a stone from over their heads came
clattering on the platform, followed by angry rushes on the
outskirts of the crowd.

As I came down from the platform, when the speaking was
over, someone told me " The Boy " was " wishful to have
a word " with me.

I found him lying on a sofa, his long legs protruding over
a chair at the end. There was a great reddish blotch on

PARLIAMENT 183

his trousers at the thigh where the dirk had struck, and the
linen with which his head was bandaged showed stains of
the same rusty-brown. His face was as white as the linen
cloths, and his blue-black eyes were brighter and blacker
from the ghastly pallor.

He tried to rise when he saw me. " Glory be to God/'
he said in a voice in which there was no trace of weakness ;
" but we swept them fine, police and all ! "

" My poor fellow," I answered, "I'm afraid you are
badly hurt."

" There is no call to pity me, sir," he answered cheerily.
" I was hurted in a good cause. Sure, if I was kilt in a
good cause, what harm ? I wish you good luck and God-
speed, your honour. I fear there is small chance of me
being out again till the battle is won with the blessing of
God. But there is no use grumbling. Didn't I get my full
share of all the fun that was going ? "

Contrary to the advice of the more prudent of my friends,
I determined on the polling day to make a final round of
the constituency and visit the principal polling booths, and
I chartered a fast horse and outside car with a plucky driver
for the perilous tour.

Political opinion was curiously and sharply divided
through the division. In one district they were nearly all
friends ; in the next they were nearly all enemies, with
always an insignificant minority to keep the enthusiasm of
the majority at boiling-point. At one village I was received
with a whirlwind of welcome, to find my opponents hemmed
away in a corner like a flock of sheep shepherded by the
police. At another village, not five miles distant, I was
driven out under a storm of " boos " and a shower of stones.

Frenchpark, a small town in the very heart of the Par-
nellite district, I found in complete possession of the enemy.
Luckily there was a friendly and fearless magistrate,
Captain McTiernan, with a strong force of police in charge.
But the police had quite enough to do to keep the peace in
the streets, and the Parnellites had it all their own way in
the polling booths, where every official was a partisan and
personation was carried to a fine art. The commonplace,

±84 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

unenterprising personator is content to take upon himself
the name of the voter who is absent or dead. Here the
bolder and more ingenious artist assumed the identity of
one of my supporters and voted against me. This was, of
course, a double-barrelled shot, by which a vote was lost
for me and gained for my opponent. I encountered in the
town several disconsolate supporters who bitterly com-
plained that the Parnellites had " trespassed on their
names."

For an hour or so I went about from booth to booth
trying to secure some semblance of fair play for my friends.
More than once a stone from the booing crowd whizzed past
me so close that I felt the wind of it on my cheek. Before
dark a clean sweep was made of the register. Every name
on it was polled out, though a full fifth of the owners of
those names were in England, America or their graves. The
personators did their work thoroughly in Frenchpark !

All day the excitement had been simmering hotter and
hotter until, towards evening, it came to boiling-point. The
news which reached us late in the afternoon that the Parnell-
ites had captured three Dublin divisions drove the Parnellite
crowd in Frenchpark mad with delight, and at the closing
of the polling booths their pent-up energy was turned loose
into the streets. Naturally, I was the first object of their
attentions. A stone sent my hat flying under the feet of
Captain McTiernan, who, as he picked it up and handed it
back to me, called out in a loud voice :

" I will order a baton charge to clear the streets."

But I begged him to do nothing of the kind. I had, I must
confess, a sneaking regard for those thoroughgoing Parnell-
ites, who abhorred me as a " traitor to the dead chief " and
dealt with me accordingly. Zeal in a wrong cause is better,
anyhow, than apathy in a right one.

" As I am the only stumbling-block to the peace," I said
to the magistrate, " I'll clear out as quickly as I can."

" I must honestly confess," he said in a low voice, " I
should be glad to see you out of the town before dusk. The
police have charge of your driver and car, and I'll have
them brought to you here."

PARLIAMENT 185

The car was brought up at a run, the driver cracking his
whip defiantly in the face of the crowd. I jumped on with-
out stopping it, and we fled helter-skelter out of the town
under a volley of stones which rattled against the car as
our parting salute from Frenchpark.

As we got clear of the town the driver laid his whip
sharply over the flank of the horse, who broke into a fast
trot, and we bumped along at the rate of twelve miles an
hour. But at a turn of the road the horse was jerked up
so suddenly that I almost went over on my head. Right
in front of us, not two hundred yards away, the road was
black with a great crowd of men, waving blackthorns and
advancing steadily.

" What's best to be done now, sir ? " asked the driver.
" There's a good few of them in it."

I noticed he had quietly shifted his whip in his hand.
The thong was coiled round his wrist ; the loaded butt
swung free.

" Back or forward, sir ? " he said. " Give the word."

We were fairly caught in a trap. To turn back to French-
park was even more dangerous than to go forward.

" Drive slowly," I said, " until we are within forty yards
or so, then get your rug over your head and try to break
through."

As we moved on cautiously the crowd stood stock still
waiting our approach. It was too dark to distinguish the
men's faces, but there was a determined look about the
crowd that I did not at all enjoy.

We were close up, making ready for a rush, when suddenly
a thundering cheer broke out :

" Hi for Bodkin ! " they yelled. " Hi for Bodkin ! "

Never did I so rejoice in the sound of my own name.

Everything was plain in a moment. My own crowd had
come out from Boyle to protect me. They had heard that
I was " hurted within in Frenchpark," one of their leaders
explained, and they were going in "to see about it." It
was with the greatest difficulty that I dissuaded them from
marching straight on into the enemy's stronghold.

At ten o'clock the next morning the counting of the votes

i86 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

began behind locked doors in the court-house. I was, I am
free to confess, feverish with excitement. Having entered
into the campaign solely on the hope and assurance of a
sound beating, I was prepared to regard defeat as an in-
tolerable disgrace. My veteran opponent, James O'Kelly,
who had faced dangers unmoved in every quarter of the
globe, was as excited as myself. His face was as white as
one of the ballot papers, and he twisted his moustache with
nervous fingers. We had been good friends in the old days,
but now we shook hands as formally as prize-fighters in
the ring.

The counting began. First the papers were emptied out
from all the ballot boxes in one huge pile on the great table
that ran down the centre of the room. Then twenty counters
set to work, opening, examining them and ranging them into
piles of a hundred each, O'Kelly on one side of the table
and Bodkin on the other, while the candidates and their
friends watched as closely as a cat watches a mouse. By
slow degrees the big heap of ballot papers grew smaller and
smaller, and the little heaps spread wider and wider over
the table.

At first, I remember, I seemed to have it all my own way.
Nine out of every ten of the ballot papers had a cross after
my name. I thought I was going to have a walk over.
Then O'Kelly had his innings, and his name was called out
again and again with irritating monotony.

The great pile dwindled down to a few scattered papers,
and was at last completely absorbed in the regiment of
smaller heaps which were arranged symmetrically on either
side of the table in long columns, like the figures in a big
sum of simple addition. There was an incomplete bundle
at the end of each regiment — seventy-four for O'Kelly,
twenty-six for me. The sheriff ran his eye up and down the
columns, counting carefully ; and I tried to do the same,
but the long lines wavered before my eyes. " The same
number of hundreds on both sides," the sheriff said at last.
" O'Kelly wins by the odd votes. Forty-eight majority—
a close shave. I congratulate you, Mr. O'Kelly, on a hard-
won victory."

PARLIAMENT 187

My heart sank till it seemed to leave a void in my breast.
I looked round at the blank faces of my friends who had
fought so hard. Beaten, after all ; I was sick and weak
with disappointment, and leant against the table, or I must
have fallen.

The sheriff was half-way across the room when one of my
friends tugged at my arm.

" He's wrong, sir," he whispered, " he's wrong. He has
counted one of O' Kelly's bundles twice over."

The sheriff's hand was on the door knob when I called
out, " Stop ! " And he looked round impatiently.

" I believe there has been a mistake, Mr. Sheriff," I said.
" Will you kindly count the bundles again ? "

" Certainly," he answered politely, " with pleasure."

This time I counted with him. At the first counting I
repeated his error, the second I discovered it. One of
O' Kelly's bundles had got out of the plumb-line and was
counted in two columns.

The sheriff at once admitted his mistake. " Bodkin by
fifty-two votes," he said.

I had won the closest contest in the election, and I was
a political prisoner in the House of Commons until the
dissolution.

With the joy of victory in my heart I bolted from the
court-house door through the great crowd, booing and
cheering, to the nearest telegraph station, and forwarded
to the person most concerned in the election a wire con-
sisting merely of my name with the coveted letters attached.

I must risk being trite and tedious in my brief record of
my parliamentary experiences ; but there are many details
of parliamentary life and procedure that become so familiar
to the Member that he forgets they are new and possibly
interesting to the outside public, so they never find their
way into books. With those details a few pages of parlia-
mentary gossip may be fairly filled.

The first indication of the imperial importance to which
I had attained came in the shape of letters from the illus-
trated papers requesting the favour of my photograph,
which nobody outside my own family had previously de-

i88 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

sired, and of pressing invitations from house agents to rent
palaces at anything up to £10,000 a year.

Meanwhile, I was anxiously considering how I could make
both ends meet on a few hundreds. My savings from the
Bar were small, and my entrance to Parliament meant that
for the greater part of the year I should live in London
while my family lived in Dublin — an increased expenditure
and a diminished income. In reply to the question, how
far my absence would reduce the household expenses, I was
informed : " It may make the difference of five shillings a
week, but I don't think it will."

Living in London was, however, much cheaper than I had
expected. The Kitchen Committee of the House of Com-
mons caters for the poor man as well as for the rich ; and
comfortable lodgings can be had at a reasonable cost within
measurable distance of the House.

A Member of Parliament of simple tastes, who makes up
his mind, as I did, to dispense with all luxuries, including
alcohol and tobacco, and take all his meals except breakfast
within the precincts of the House of Commons, can be fairly
comfortable on £150 a year.

CHAPTER XIX

EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH M.P.

The House — The first sight of Mr. Gladstone — Turning out a Government
— The young lawyer Asquith — " Unparalleled in the records of political
apostasy " — Dr. Tanner as cup-bearer — Introduction of Home Rule —
Intense excitement — Competition for places — Triumph of Gladstone.

BUT it was not until I got to London, it was not until I
had walked down the first day to Westminster, that
I realized the full magnitude and importance of my position.
When I reached the corner of the crossing facing the
Members' private entrance, I was not a little perplexed at
the stream of traffic that flowed between me and Palace
Yard. While I stood irresolute on the curbstone, like a
timid bather hesitating before his plunge, a policeman
close beside caught sight of my hesitating figure.

" A Member, sir ? " he said.

I nodded. Instantly a stalwart arm was raised and then,
to my amazement, the miracle of the Red Sea was repeated.
The traffic was arrested in mid-channel, pawing horses,
impatient cyclists, lumbering vans lined up across the
street, and in front was a passage for the newly made
Member for North Roscommon.

The Member of Parliament's precious old-world privileges
of eluding his creditors and franking his letters have been
abolished, this poor remnant alone remains : the traffic
which blocks his way to the discharge of his senatorial
duties is always arrested on his approach.

" Good day, sir," said the policeman, with a strong
brogue, at the entrance to Westminster, saluting as I passed
in in a manner at once respectful and familiar. " Most of the
gentlemen are already down at the House, sir. Mr. Glad-
stone has just come."

Even as he spoke a mighty cheer arose from the crowded

189

igo RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

assembly in Palace Yard, and a carriage, with an old man
and an old lady in the back seat and a young lady and a
child in the front, came swiftly through the gate.

It was the first time I had ever seen Mr. Gladstone, but I
knew him instantly from portrait and cartoon. His colour
was creamy white, like an old carving of ivory, his eyes
beaming with dazzling brilliancy. He was wreathed in
smiles, and I never knew a man whose smile was more
delightful. The very wrinkles about his eyes and mouth
were expressive of good-humour and delight as the dimples
of beauty. Again and again the crowd shouted its welcome
as he passed smiling through the throng and disappeared
into the Members' entrance to the House.

Entering the precincts of the House of Commons, by a door
through which under no circumstances can " strangers " be
admitted, I found myself in a long corridor with rows of in-
numerable hat-pegs on the wall. It was with a curious little
shock of surprise that I discovered my own name over one
of the hat-pegs, and under it a miniature halter of red tape
to suspend my umbrella. By prompt application I secured
a locker big enough to hold another hat (of whose use more
shall be said presently) and papers and books. There are
two Members for each available locker. It is a case of first
come first served, and the competition is keen.

What surprises the new Member most is to find himself so
well known by people he has never met in a place where he
has never been. The police and officials whom I encountered
seemed perfectly familiar with my appearance, and I passed
without parley into the most sacred recess of the House
exclusively reserved for Members.

I learned afterwards that there is a special collection of
the photographs of the Members of the House of Commons,
which is carefully studied by the police and officials, so that
they meet and greet the new Members on their first ap-
pearances as old acquaintances. Apart, however, from
this advantage, the memory of the attendants in the House
of Commons for names and faces is something that borders
on the miraculous.

There is an old story (I cannot vouch for its truth), that

From a photograph by the London Stereoscopic Co,, Ltd.

THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE

p. 190

EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH M.P. 191

on one occasion the lights went out when the truant Mem-
bers were crowding into the House for an important division.
Some of the general public tried to mingle with the crowd
who poured into the sacred precincts of the House ; but at
the door stood the ponderous guardian of the place, a big
and stately personage with the face and figure of a glorified
butler, and he, recognizing his flock by their voices alone,
separated the sheep from the goats at the entrance.

For the first two days I wandered disconsolate about the
long galleries and corridors of the House, on the third day
one of the officials approached me with an extraordinary
request.

Addressing me by my name, although I had never spoken
to him or seen him before, he said : " I want you to do me a
favour/'

" With pleasure/' I answered, " if it is in my power/'

" Oh, there is no difficulty about that/' he said. " I
merely desire that you will show some lady friends of mine
over the House."

I must say the request took me by surprise. " My dear
fellow," I protested, " you could not possibly have come to a
worse man than myself. I would lose myself a dozen times
in the corridors and passages."

" That's all right," he returned, " I will go with you
myself and show you the way."

" But why not show the ladies the way instead of showing
it to me ? "

" I cannot," he answered; "that privilege is reserved for
the Members. You will forgive the liberty I have taken,
but whenever the officials of the House require favours
from the Members it is always the Irish Members they ask."

So it came about I showed a number of charming ladies
all round the House of Commons while it was still a per-
plexing maze to myself ; and like many a teacher I learned a
lot from my pupils.

Mr. Gladstone, in spite of " the Parnell split," had come
back with a majority of forty pledged to Home Rule. The
first step, of course, was to expel from office the Unionist
minority, who clung to their posts with desperate tenacity.

IQ2 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

It was a brilliant attack, and the magnitude of issue involved
enhanced the excitement of the struggle. The vote of
censure on the Government was moved by a young lawyer
named Asquith, then first emerging from obscurity, now
Prime Minister of England, in a fighting speech, full of
oratorical sword-play, brilliant and pitiless. One sentence
alone of the speech lives in my memory. He charged the
Liberal Unionists who sat beside him in the Opposition with
having been guilty of a " treason unparalleled in the annals
of political apostasy."

This phrase gave special bitterness to the debate that
followed, and the accusation was repelled by speaker after
speaker with a fine show of indignation. It was to the novice
a splendid and stately drama full of interest and excitement,
yet the concluding scene almost culminated in a farce. A
little before midnight a pompous member of the Government,
proudly swelling at his opportunity, with the superb self-
consciousness of a turkey-cock, rose to close the debate.

The spirit of mischievous schoolboys suddenly inspired
the great Legislative assembly. The orator was a big man
with big gestures and a very small voice. He had, it was
often said, all the attributes of a great orator except elo-
quence.

As he rose to speak, the rumour ran round the House that
two Tories had missed their trains. Every vote in the
division was, of course, of vital importance, and the pompous,
self-complacent orator was speaking against time.

The rumour filled the place with instant tumult ; the
voices of a score of quick-witted Irish tormentors played
round the ponderous orator as swallows round a crow.
Every sentence of his was twisted from its meaning by
some comical interpretation, the chorus of laughter and
applause never slackened for a moment. The unhappy man,
tied as it were to the orator's stake and compelled to fight
the round, alternately protested, entreated and appealed all
to no purpose. His gestures were ample and awe-inspiring
to the last, but his voice died slowly away to a mere husky
squeak before the terrible ordeal was over.

The climax came when the most audacious and uncon-

EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH M.P. 193

ventional Member of the Irish Party, the irrepressible Dr.
Tanner, was seen pushing his way through the crowd at the
Bar of the House. With a profound obeisance to the
Speaker, he marched slowly up the floor between the densely
thronged benches, a large tumbler of amber-coloured
liquor held conspicuously in his right hand. The shriek of
laughter that rent the House from all quarters made the
orator turn at last. But when he met the bland smile of the
mocking Ganymede, who stood with the big tumbler at his
elbow, he almost collapsed. One imploring glance for
release he gave his leader, who was stretching his long legs
on the bench beside him, but with a quick imperative
gesture the leader told him the time was not yet come,
so the speaker went stumbling on again, helpless and hope-
less, through the ever-growing tumult.

Slowly the hands of the clock began to join one another
at midnight. A hundred impatient voices shouted, " Time !
Time ! " and the impotent orator subsided at last.

The Speaker rose, stately and impressive, to put the
question on which the fate of the Government depended.
There followed a storm of " ayes " and answering clamour of
" noes/'

" I declare the noes have it," said the Speaker. He knew
the ayes had it well enough, but it is the custom of the
Speaker to declare for the Government of the day, whom,
it is assumed, command a majority until there is proof to
the contrary.

" The ayes have it ! " yelled out the Liberals, and a
division was called.

In the confusion of the division I had almost plunged
headlong through the door of the wrong lobby when one of
the Irish Whips captured me by the coat-tails and put me
right. We were packed tight as herrings in a barrel in the
division lobby, and the crowd pushed and wedged them-
selves one at a time through the passage. At long last I
found myself duly ticked off by the clerks at the turnstile,
duly counted by the Whips, and back in the House waiting
impatiently for the momentous verdict.

The interval seemed interminable, so great was the

194 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

impatient tension of suspense, though hardly a minute
elapsed until the Whips marched two by two up the floor
of the House, the tally papers in their hands. There was
a roar of applause when the Opposition Whips came to
the right-hand side — a proof of victory. Then in a sudden
hush, still as death, the figures were read — 350 to 310. The
old Government was out and the new Government was in by
a majority of forty.

Later on I may have a word or two to say of what I
learned of the tricks and ways of the House of Commons
during a month or so of dull routine, which lasted till the
new Government had settled comfortably into their places.
For the present I will skip to the day when Mr. Gladstone,
for the second time, introduced to the British House of
Commons a measure for Home Rule for Ireland.

As the day approached, curiosity and excitement de-
veloped into a fever. To avoid the invasion of Westminster
by legislators at the small hours of the morning, the Speaker
ordained that the doors of the Chamber itself should not be
opened before noon. The only result was to keep the
crowd some hours longer on the wrong side of the door.
From the very earliest dawn the lobby that led directly to
the main entrance of the Legislative Chamber was thronged
to suffocation by eager and impatient legislators. At first
there was some pretence at order and decorum. Two long
rows of chairs stretched from the great doors right across the
lobby with a Member seated in each; but hours before the
time fixed for the opening excitement got the better of
patience. The chairs were abandoned, and the great crowd
pressed and swayed against the double row of constables
that formed a good-humoured but insurmountable barrier
between them and the carved doors of the sacred Chamber
itself. For two long hours we stood squeezed tight as
sardines in a tin, with faces set immovably towards the
entrance, and the long wait was beguiled with good-humoured
banter, in which " sabre-cuts of Saxon speech " were freely
interchanged. At eleven o'clock a man came to wind the
clock over the door, and was overwhelmed with piteous
appeals to give the hands just one turn more.

EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH M.P. 195

At last, just as Big Ben boomed out twelve, making the
air shake with the deep sound of the strokes, the double row
of obstructive policemen melted away. The doors suddenly
opened, and the tumultuous crowd of excited legislators
went through into the solemn Chamber like a mill-stream
when the dam goes down.

I had done a little football in my time, but I had never
been in a scrimmage so rough and fierce as this great
stampede of Members that went tearing along the floor of the
" most august assembly in the world."

We swept like a drove of cattle along the passages,
scattered and scrambled like monkeys over the benches,
and in the twinkle of an eye there was a hat on every seat in
the Chamber. I was lucky in the scramble, and secured a
corner seat almost facing Mr. Gladstone's place on the
Treasury bench opposite. By prayer-time every lane and
alley of the Chamber was crammed as tight as they could
hold with imported chairs, every stair of the gangways was
claimed by a hat.

The various galleries, however, reserved for ladies, for
distinguished personages, and for the Peers and the general
public were still empty. Until prayers are over no stranger
is admitted to the precincts, but as the final " Amen " was
pronounced by the Chaplain of the House the sound of a
second and still more excited scramble broke upon my ears.

Glancing to the Peers' Gallery, I was just in time to see
the Ancient Nobility of England a confused whirl of lordly
legs and arms, all struggling together in inexplicable con-
fusion, tumble into the narrow receptacle the House of
Commons provides for the peerage.

The House settled down for a while with outward calm
to the transaction of ordinary business, but all the time
there was a tenseness in the atmosphere which spoke of a
coming storm, and when at last the Grand Old Man himself
appeared, debonnaire as a bridegroom, with a fresh rosebud
in his button-hole, the whole place went mad once more
with unrestrained excitement. Irish Nationalists and
English Liberals leaped to their feet, waving their hats and
cheering until the vast volume of sound seemed to shake

196 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

the carved roof of the historic Chamber, which in all its
long and varied history had never witnessed a more ex-
hilarating scene. Then suddenly the sound died out to still
silence, for the speech so long and so eagerly looked for had
begun, and the greatest statesman and orator of his genera-
tion was unfolding the details of his proposed treaty of
peace between two nations whose bitter feud had lasted
through seven centuries.

His voice was low at first, but gathered power at every
word till it filled the building, strong and pure, like the
master tones of an organ. No attribute of an orator was,
in my poor judgment, lacking in that marvellous speech —
lucid exposition, clear reasoning, passionate appeal, captured
alike the hearts and minds of his hearers. Erect, alert,
with word and face and gesture fitted to the thought, in
that miraculous man the vigour of youth and the dignity of
age were marvellously combined.

It was not in any sense a fighting speech. There was no
attack on opponents, nothing that rasped or jarred.

Truth the mild robe of soft persuasion wore,
And e'en reluctant party felt awhile
That magic power.

Unionists were so carried away by his eloquence that
they applauded with the Home Rulers. We lost count of
time while he spoke. Not a man in the room, friend or foe,
was unmoved by the thrilling earnestness of his voice. When
he closed with a peroration of surpassing eloquence, dead
silence followed, — the silence of strong feeling. Then cheers
broke out unrestrained from all sides of the House.

Speaking for one man alone, he completely captured me,
heart and soul. The strain of enthusiasm became almost
unbearable : I listened in a kind of ecstasy as the great
speech drew to a close, in solemn majestic rhythm, sublime
as the utterance of an inspired prophet ; I felt as if nothing
could resist him, that Home Rule was already won by a
unanimous vote.

The moment Mr. Gladstone sat down a young Irish
Unionist barrister, Dick Dane, a friend of my own, who had
just come to the House, with splendid audacity sprang to his

EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH M.P. 197

feet to answer him. But the Speaker looked the other way,
and Sir Edward Clarke replied as spokesman of the Oppo-
sition.

There followed a general engagement, in which the big
guns on the Front Benches opened fire in succession on one
side or another, and a vast amount of argument and elo-
quence was expended without changing a vote. The second
reading of the Bill was carried by the expected majority of
forty, and we lapsed into the dull tedium of committee,
where the Unionists, turning the weapons of the Irish
party against themselves, obstructed remorselessly. But
there were none of the lively excursions and alarms of Irish
obstruction, it was a weary, weary time of frivolous amend-
ments, dull speeches and incessant tramps through the
division lobbies.

CHAPTER XX
HUMOURS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

"Efficacy of prayer" — The Speaker's procession — Hats — Gladstone's
comical experience — The hard-worked — " Hear ! hear ! " — Guy Fawkes
up-to-date — Searching the vaults for gunpowder — Socialism and
sociality — Gladstone's surprise speech — Biggar's formula, "All real
here, mister."

MEANWHILE I was learning my way about the
House of Commons, and almost my first lesson
was concerned with the " efficacy of prayer," though
hardly in the sense by which the phrase is understood by
theologians. It is ordained that every sitting of the House
is opened with prayer, and the devout attendance of the
Members is ingeniously enforced.

I remember well with what a shock of surprise I got my
first peep at the Speaker in his regimentals. I was coming
down a long corridor with a glass door at the end of it, when
a confusion of electric bells began to ring here, there and
everywhere all over the place. A great red-bearded police-
man on duty just behind the glass door seemed shaken with
convulsions, his whole body contracted for a mighty effort,
his knees bent, his hands doubled up, his mouth opened wide,
then all at once a roar rang through the building that shook
the windows.

" Speaker ! " yelled the policeman with the full force of
his lungs.

" Hats off, Speaker ! " came the cry from the attendants,
and up through the long corridor there swept a procession
that seemed to come right out of the Middle Ages. The
Speaker himself moved at its head, stately, austere, in a big
beehive wig and flowing black robes. Behind him came the
Serjeant-at-Arms in antique dress of black silk and white
lace, a sheathed rapier at his side and the huge gilded mace,

198

HUMOURS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 199

" the bauble " that Cromwell spoke of so contemptuously,
borne on his shoulder. The Speaker's chaplain in robes
and bands represented the spiritual element of the cere-
monial.

As the procession passed the cry grew more deafening.
" Speaker, Speaker. Hats off, strangers ! " and the pro-
cession slowly wound itself through the lobby into the
Legislative Chamber through the carved door which closed
behind it.

To encourage devotion among the Members, it is arranged
that only those who are present at prayers can secure seats
for the day. The method of securing a seat in the House of
Commons approaches a fine art. The early Member takes
the early seat by planting on it his hat and a card inscribed
with " Prayers " in big letters. But his right is established
only until prayer-time. If he be absent from prayers, any
more devout Member may " jump his claim," removing the
hat and card. Prayers over, a little printed card stuck in a
brass sconce at the back of the seat secures the rights of
exclusive occupation till the rising of the House.

The rule, like all rules, is liable to evasion and abuse.
Mr. Bradlaugh's irreligious scruples were too strong to
permit him to be present in the House at prayer-time, but, as
I was told, he used to watch at the open door with hat in
hand ready to pounce for a seat the moment " Amen " was
intoned.

It is on record that Dr. Tanner, on one memorable
occasion in his zealous discharge of his duty as Whip of the
Irish party, came down to the House at dawn with a cab-
load of old hats to secure seats for his leaders.

It is here that the spare hat in the locker came in handy.
" One man one hat " was the rule laid down by the Speaker,
but it was more honoured in the breach than the observance,
and many a Member paraded the City in the forenoon with
his best hat on his head while his second best stood sentinel
on a seat in the House of Commons.

The hat, I may add, plays a tremendous part in parlia-
mentary procedure. Woe betide the incautious novice who
wears it when he should not, or doesn't wear it when he

200 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

should. His crime is almost as great as if he had
passed between the speaking Member and the Speaker,
and his horror-stricken colleagues roar "Order! Order!"
at him as fiercely as if he had committed the unpardon-
able sin.

The accomplished Member of the House of Commons
prides himself on the " nice conduct of a cloudless hat."
The unwritten law ordains that a Member must wear his hat
when he is sitting, and must not wear it when he is standing.
Before a division is called it is a gross breach of order to
address the House with hat on, after division is called it is
just as gross a breach of order to address the House with
hat off.

I remember once Mr. Gladstone was himself the victim of
the rule. The Front Bench men, ministers and ex-ministers,
who enjoy their seats by prescriptive right, and don't need
hats to secure them, always come bareheaded into the
House.

A division was called, Mr. Gladstone desired to address
the Speaker on a point of order ; his hat was in his own
room, the hats of his colleagues were in theirs. What was
to be done ? A whisper ran round the benches, and from
afar off an humble supporter of the Grand Old Man sent his
hat to the rescue. But in the hurry there had been no time
to pick and choose, and the hat was half a dozen sizes too
small for Mr. Gladstone. It perched rakishly on the high,
white dome of his head while he solemnly addressed the
Speaker amid roars of laughter from an irreverent
House.

But Mr. Gladstone, I observed, did not laugh. Nor did
he, I am sure, in the slightest degree appreciate either the
humour of the situation or the absurdity of the rule. To him
it was an ancient tradition of the House, and that alone was
sufficient to secure its respectful observance.

During my few years in Parliament I often observed with
surprise that this very great man was a rigid stickler for
very small observances and ceremonial. He was specially
a martinet in regard to the rules governing the conduct of
the House, and I have still before me, as one of the most

HUMOURS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 201

comical pictures I have ever seen, the grave decorum of
face and voice with which he addressed the Speaker, balanc-
ing that ridiculous little hat on his head with the skill of an
acrobat.

By an imperative custom of the House of Commons its
Members can only express their feelings by the repetition
of the word " Hear, hear ! " No other word is "in
order/'

But this monosyllable, as employed in the House of
Commons, is the most expressive word in the language.
There is no sentiment in the entire gamut of feeling that
cannot be conveyed by the " hear, hear " of an experienced
Member of Parliament — admiration, approval, affection,
enthusiasm, indignation, contempt, ridicule, all are within
the compass of this one word.

Humpty Dumpty in " Alice in Wonderland/' who made
any word mean exactly what he chose it to mean, had not
more dominion over his subjects than a skilled operator
exercises over the parliamentary monosyllable, which for
many Members constitutes their entire parliamentary
vocabulary.

Apropos of this, I might mention an amusing incident
that occurred at a later date in my experience of the
House.

The present Lord Salisbury was holding forth on
School Board Education in a speech replete with tiresome
technical statistics of attendance and expenditure. The dull
sentences poured along like the brook, for ever and for ever.
There seemed to be no prospect of an end to the oration.
Suddenly an Irish Member emphasized a statement with
regard to " two pence three farthings " with the " hear,
hear " of rapturous approval.

The hint was instantly taken. At the close of every
sentence of the trite and tiresome harangue there came a
burst of such wild and spontaneous enthusiasm as had
never been evoked by the most eloquent peroration of Mr.
Gladstone's. At first it seemed as though the orator fancied
he had moved the hearts of the Members by his appeal.
But the continued and uproarious applause slowly forced

202 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

upon his mind the suspicion of an ironical demonstration.
He struggled on for a few sentences, amid the ever-growing
enthusiasm, then suddenly he collapsed and sat down in
the middle of a sentence.

Whatever the party in power, the House of Commons
itself is essentially a conservative institution. It despises
the Shakespearean warning : —

What custom wills in all things should we do,
The dust of antique time would be unswept.

"The dust of antique time" is all over the place. Absurd
old customs dating back to the Middle Ages, customs which
have lost all meaning with the flux of years, are preserved
in the House of Commons with all the sanctity of religious
observances.

I was lounging in the empty Legislative Chamber one
morning before the House sat, when the sound of footsteps
at the door attracted my attention, and looking round
suddenly, I could hardly believe that my astonished eyes
saw what they seemed to see. I was taken back again into
the days when Charles II was king. This big, quiet Chamber
with its wide rows of empty benches was suddenly alive
with the figures and costumes of the reign of the liveliest of
the Stuarts.

A troop of " Beef-eaters," with their white tunics and
buff breeches, coloured hose and apple-pie hats bedecked
with variegated ribbons, moved solemnly down the centre of
the House, and each as he moved swung from his finger an
old horn lantern. A stately person in antique Court dress
paced in front of this grotesque procession. For a moment
I was unable, if I may use the expression, to place the
performance, then suddenly it dawned on me. I had heard
vaguely of this pageant before. It was Guy Fawkes who
was responsible : the " Beef -eaters," according to custom,
stretching back through many centuries, were on their way
with dim horn lanterns to search the electric-lit cellars of
the House of Commons for gunpowder barrels and masked
conspirators. The absurd make-belief was conducted with
the utmost solemnity. The mummers and the few English
Members who respectfully followed the extraordinary

HUMOURS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 203

procession were grave in their demeanour as the attendants
at a funeral, no one smiled but myself.

By a scarcely less grotesque ceremonial, statutes which
have made their perilous way through both Houses of
Parliament finally receive the Royal assent and so pass into
law.

I have but a dim recollection of once witnessing the
performance. There were a number of figures in wigs and
gowns and curious robes, who moved like puppets through
the ceremonial. One, I remember, read in a droning
voice the title of the Act ; the other twisted sharp round,
as if moved by clockwork, and jerked out like the bird of
the cuckoo clock in a mechanical voice : "La reine le
veut," and straightway the Bill became an Act of Parlia-
ment.

I think it is Oliver Wendell Holmes that somewhere puts
the question whether life is a small bundle of big things, or
a big bundle of little things. The latter would more probably
be the description of the life in the House of Commons, at
least during my experience ; for one lively or exciting day
we had a week's monotony.

The House has been described as the best club in the
world, and in one essential it amply merits the description.
No man dare play the snob in the House of Commons on the
strength of his rank or his money. Over its portals might
be written : " All ' side ' abandon, ye who enter here."
Cook's son and duke's son are on perfect equality ; and if
the cook's son is a clever fellow and the duke's son — as
sometimes happens — is a fool, the cook's son is courted by
the Members and the duke's son is ignored. In the smoking-
room especially this social freemasonry is most conspicuous.
The man who wants a banquet and the man who wants a
beefsteak cannot well dine at the same table. But in the
smoking-room all class distinctions are abolished. Equality
and geniality prevail. There the Members of all shades of
politics and with all kinds of smoking utensils, from a half-
crown cigar to a clay pipe, forgather on terms of perfect
equality. In comparison with the Legislative Chamber
the smoking-room is the Palace of Truth. Nationalists

204 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

and Unionists met there on the most friendly terms
at the same tables. The opposition so vehement in the
House was practically abandoned in the smoking-room.

I remember well on one occasion, just after Mr. Gladstone's
great speech introducing the Home Rule Bill, I asked a
prominent Conservative, Mr. Hanbury, afterwards one of the
ablest members of a Unionist Cabinet :

" How would you vote if Mr. Balfour made that speech
instead of Mr. Gladstone ? "

" That," he answered, laughing, " is not a fair question
even for the smoking-room," and I did not press for any
further reply.

Now and again, of course, the sharp stress and strain of
party feeling dominated all personal feelings, but as a rule
personal friendship ran in the most curious way, zigzag across
the line of party divisions. To take one illustration, there
was no man more popular with the Irish party than poor
old Johnston of Ballykilbeg, and I think he reciprocated
our friendly feeling.

I remember he once cordially invited me to join a I2th of
July demonstration in Belfast. " Why," I replied, " a
papist would be killed if he showed his nose on such an
occasion." " Not if you come with me," he answered, a
proviso that was not wholly encouraging, and I respectfully
declined the invitation.

On some other occasion some chartered bore was delivering
a long-winded oration when old Johnston suddenly, apropos
of nothing at all, moved the adjournment of the House.
The spirit of mischief tempted me to second the motion,
and the conjunction so delighted the assembly, with whom
a small joke always went a long way, that it was almost
unanimously carried, and we broke up tumultuously like
schoolboys at an unexpected half-holiday.

Humour is indeed keenly appreciated in the House of
Commons, which loves a joke however poor or small. It
will roar with laughter if a nervous speaker collapses on his
own hat, or an excited orator in the full fury of his eloquence
batters the hat of a brother Member over his eyes. The
man who, like Mr. Healy, amuses the House can do what

HUMOURS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 205

he likes with it, anything and everything will be for-
given him.

Perhaps the explanation for this craving for diversion is
to be found in the fact that all forms of entertainment
are rigorously excluded from the precincts of West-
minster.

No game is allowed except the laborious game of chess. In
the vast library light literature is to a great extent tabooed,
and the long monotonous rows of heavy books of reference
have a decidedly depressing effect. No wonder Members
wander into the smoking-room for a lounge and a gossip
when a bore is in possession of the Legislative Chamber.

The bete noir of the smoking-room is the division bell.
Just as you have lit up and leant back in a particularly
cosy arm-chair for a pleasant chat the infernal " tingle,
tingle," is heard in all places at once, seeming to pervade
the entire air, persistent, insistent, not-to-be-denied.

You have to go rushing up narrow staircases and through
long corridors to record your vote on some question, the
merits and demerits of which you are absolutely ignorant,
though it may chance that the very existence of the Govern-
ment hangs upon the decision.

Of course, you are not allowed to carry a lighted cigar or
pipe through the division lobby, and I remember it was
esteemed a notable feat to get through the lobby and record
your vote in time to catch cigar or pipe still alight on the
marble table of the smoking-room, where you laid it when
the division bell rang out its insistent summons.

Another drawback to the perfect comfort of the smok-
ing room, especially when Mr. Gladstone was still in
the House, was the feeling that lounging idly there you
might miss something really good in the Legislative
Chamber.

You could never tell when that miraculous old man would
electrify the proceedings with a matchless oration. On
one occasion " in the mid waste and middle " of dinner-hour,
when the Legislative Chamber was almost empty, he took
it into his head to trounce Mr. Chamberlain, a task which he
accomplished with unrivalled freedom and finish. By great

206 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

good luck I happened to be in the House at the time : I
was one of the few who were so fortunate. The speech was
as short as it was brilliant, and before the news had got
abroad that Mr. Gladstone was on his legs he had sat down
again. We who heard this wonderful speech hugged our-
selves on our good fortune, they who missed it were loud in
their lamentation. I met Mr. Healy a little while after in the
lobby.

" What did you think of that ? " he demanded en-
thusiastically.

' The best debating speech I have ever heard/'

" Debating speech be hanged! " he replied; " it was the
best speech Gladstone ever made. By heaven, it was the
best speech any man ever made."

Towards the end of my time in the House, however, a
device had been perfected to obviate the risk of missing such
a treat. A wide space has been arranged conspicuously at
the end of the smoke-room, which automatically records the
name of each speaker as he rises to address the House. I
used to think it gave an additional zest to the flavour of
a cigar to see the name of some pretentious bore loom
large across the board, and to think of the fate of the
Speaker and the Serjeant-at-Arms who were his only
audience.

This is no exaggeration. Over and over again, glancing
through the House at dinner-time, I saw the vast dreary
waste inhabited only by three figures : the Speaker in his
huge carved chair on the dais, the Serjeant-at-Arms in his
little sentry-box at the entrance, and the dreary bore who
poured out his platitudes on those two helpless victims and
to a desert of empty green benches.

It is not to be supposed that there are great speeches
every night or every week, or I might even say every month.
Apart from the interest of the place and the sense of power
which its membership confers, the routine of parliamentary
life is dull enough in all conscience. The largeness and
vitality of the issues involved, however, redeem it from
tediousness. For most men it has an absorbing infatuation,
which, after a while, makes itself felt in spite of the mono-

HUMOURS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 207

tony. The late Mr. Biggar lived in the House and for the
House, he had no other interest or amusement. It is told
that on one occasion when his friends asked him why he
never went to the theatre, he replied :

"This is better than any theatre, mister. It is all real
here."

CHAPTER XXI
THE RULES OF THE GAME

Question time — Bowling and batting — The alleged poet Homer — The
tribulations of Private Members — The count out — Labouchere's
strong language — The all-night sitting — " Who goes home ? " — The
devotion of Mrs. Gladstone — A touching episode.

THERE are all sorts of unexpected interludes to
mitigate the dulness of parliamentary life, and
question time is specially fruitful of such interludes.
Questions, as a rule, were not designed for the purpose of
eliciting information. The object was generally to put the
Minister questioned in the wrong box — to convict him or his
department of misconduct ; under cover of a note of
interrogation to contrive an attack on political opponents.

Question time, to my mind, had a curious resemblance to
a game of cricket, in which the Opposition bowled and the
Ministers batted. There were fast balls and underhand
twisters. Sometimes the Ministers scored heavily off the
bowlers, sometimes their wickets were taken. The Speaker
was umpire, and called " No ball " — I mean " Order !
order ! " — if an irregular question was delivered. We used
to have a good deal of quiet fun occasionally at this game,
when a single question developed into a catechism, before
the Speaker could effectively interpose.

On one occasion Mr. Johnston, of Ballykilbeg, whose
comic bigotry was a source of perennial amusement, objected
in the form of a question to the use in primary schools of the
book containing Moore's song, " Row, brothers, row," on the
ground that its allusion to " saints of our own green isle "
inculcated the worship of saints.

Before the Minister could reply I popped up with a
supplementary question.

" Is the right honourable gentleman aware," I asked, with

208

THE RULES OF THE GAME 209

a face as grave as a mustard-pot, " that in the intermediate
schools and universities they require the study of an alleged
poet named Homer, who encourages the worship of Jupiter,
Juno, Venus and other objectionable personages ? "

" Order, order ! " cried the Speaker smilingly. " I am
afraid that question savours of ridicule." But the up-
roarious laughter of the House told me that I had scored.

I was specially delighted with the face of Mr. Gladstone,
right opposite where I sat. He gave a little start of dismay
at the sacrilege of "an alleged poet named Homer," but
when he caught the point of the question his whole face
wrinkled with laughter.

Another source of much enlivenment in the House were
the vagaries of " private Members " who desired to enshrine
their special hobbies in the Statute Book. The " Private
Members' Bills," as they are called, are subject to the most
stringent regulations. The objection of a single Member
blocks the Bill at any stage. No debate, no discussion is
allowed ; the Speaker passes at once to the next item on the
programme.

No one that has not witnessed it can realize the humour of
the proceeding. To a private Member his Bill is as precious
as an only child to a doting mother. He seems to fondle it
in his arms. There is a tremor of anxiety in his voice as
he strives to advance it a stage towards the triumph of
enactment. Then an enemy, often close beside him, gets
up, and with the fatal phrase, " I object ! " seals its fate for
the night. A few words of gentle expostulation are at-
tempted, generally without effect, and the private Member
resumes his seat, still sadly fondling his unhappy off-
spring.

It was particularly amusing to see the cynical Mr.
Labouchere as one of the chief actors in this little comedy.

Mr. Labouchere had a private Bill called, I think, the
" Chimney Sweepers Protection Bill," for which he evinced
a more than maternal affection. Night after night it was
blocked by a Mr. Bolton, for whom Mr. Labouchere enter-
tained an unmitigated hatred and contempt. One night,
however, in an unhappy moment he attempted to propitiate

210 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

the enemy. He made a humble appeal to Mr. Bolton in which
he described the innocence and beauty of the Bill, but Mr.
Bolton retorted with the sternly repeated " I object ! "

Thereupon Mr. Labouchere's temper got the better of
him, and he retorted " You to blazes ! " in a voice audible
to everyone in the House, except (apparently) the Speaker,
who took no notice of the incident or the shriek of laughter
that followed.

A " count out " is a kind of practical joke much esteemed
by legislative humorists, especially as the result is an
unexpected holiday. It generally comes off on what was
called " private Members' nights," when the House resolves
itself into a kind of debating society, and private Members
who were lucky in the ballot get an opportunity of airing
their pet fads. On these occasions the House usually
emptied itself out to the dregs. Then some malevolent
Member would call the attention of the Speaker, who would
never notice it of his own accord, to the fact that there was
not a quorum of forty present.

A few minutes' grace was allowed, however, " to make a
House." The contest was keen between those who wanted
and those who didn't want an adjournment, and Members
were encouraged or obstructed on their way to the Chamber.
It was especially amusing on those occasions to watch the
crowds of " counters out " skulking just outside the official
range of the Speaker's eye. On some occasions Members
with a pet hobby to exercise were known to entertain a
dinner-party of forty Members on the premises, who were
expected in return for food and wine to "keep a House"
for their entertainer.

The kitchen of the House of Commons needs its subsidy
of a few thousand a year, for it is a restaurant that can
never count its customers beforehand. A sudden " scene "
may unexpectedly detain a few hundred Members to dinner,
a " count out " may send as many intending diners scurry-
ing off to their own homes.

Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered that
the commissariat department occasionally breaks down. I
remember on the occasion of one of the few all-night

THE RULES OF THE GAME 211

sittings in which I participated we were compelled to
support fainting nature on hard-boiled eggs and bread
and cheese.

I came into the House of Commons at a time when,
apart from the large issues involved, it was especially dull
and trying for an Irish Member. The Tories had all the fun :
they were playing the lively and exciting game of obstruc-
tion. Our daily duty was to sit silent and vote. Every
word spoken was a trespass on the time of the House, which
the Government regard, and rightly regard, as their most
valuable asset. I used to look back with envy and regret
on the good old days of lively Irish obstruction, when the
enemy were in power and when the longer an Irish Member
spoke, and the oftener, the better he deserved of his party.

Even our all-night sittings were poor and tame in com-
parison with the strenuous old days, when the floor of the
library was strewn with sleeping Members, like soldiers in an
encampment ready at the battle-call to spring up and rush
into the fray.

We occasionally sat up all night discussing interminable
trivialities, dreary as " a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear
of a drowsy man/' and welcomed with enthusiasm the shout
of a score of policemen " Who goes home ? " which announces
the fall of the curtain on the night's performance. The
shout itself is reminiscent of the days when the footpads
that frequented the streets of London made going home a
service of danger, and Members herded together for mutual
protection. In modern days, however, the shout is but a
warning to the vast array of vehicles, of all shapes and
sizes, with which Palace Yard is thronged, to carry off
the weary legislators to bed.

The scene, as I crept wearily out from the dim light and
stuffy air of the House into the pure freshness of the dawn,
was a new revelation of the truth and beauty of Words-
worth's exquisite sonnet : —

This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning : silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie

Open to the fields and to the sky.

212 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

The river glideth at his own sweet will.
Dear God, the very houses seem asleep,
And all that mighty heart is lying still.

The wide space of Palace Yard at such times was a perfect
wilderness of prancing horses, whirling vehicles and flashing
lights.

Necessity is the mother of innovation. I could not afford
even the cheapest vehicle to carry me to my distant lodgings,
so I was the first to introduce the humble bicycle into this
aristocratic society. My example was followed by many
others. Even Mr. Balfour for a time, before the advent of
the motor, condescended to the bicycle. But at first
mine was the solitary bike amongst the wilderness of
vehicles, and I remember well the pleasure with which I
jumped upon my lowly steed, gave the whole glittering
procession a lead up the smooth wooden pavement of
Whitehall, and out-distancing them all stole swiftly and
silently through the silent streets to my lodgings in the
suburbs.

The House of Commons, if it is the best club, is assuredly
the most ungallant assembly in the world. Nor have its
temper and character been improved by recent feminine
invasions. The gallery reserved for ladies is, as everyone
knows, narrow, dark, and fenced with a close brass grating
that suggests the harem of an Eastern potentate.

I have been to the Ladies' Gallery, of course, many times,
and can vouch for it that it is only possible to see through
the narrow opening of the grating angular sections of the
faces of the speakers in the House below. The reason of this
caging up of the ladies has never been made quite clear, but
the generally accepted explanation is that the full and
unrestricted glare of feminine charms in the gallery behind
the Speaker's chair, to which all eyes are necessarily turned,
would dazzle impressionable Members and distract them
from the business in hand.

Instigated, doubtless, by feminine complaint, many
objections have been taken by the Members of the
House to the retention of the grating, but the conserva-
tive vis inertia which in the House of Commons opposes

THE RULES OF THE GAME 213

itself to all change, reasonable or unreasonable, has pre-
vailed.

I remember on one occasion, instigated by a charming
young lady, I questioned Mr. Herbert Gladstone, then
President of the Board of Public Works, on the subject
across the floor of the House. With deprecating eye cast
sideways towards the Ladies' Gallery, Mr. Gladstone regretted
his inability to have the grating removed. When I met him
afterwards in the smoking-room he protested against the
invidious position in which my question had placed him,
and volunteered as a compromise to provide me with a
pickaxe and crowbar and every facility for removing it
myself.

Before I pass from the subject of the grating, there is one
little curious incident that I desire to recall. Standing at
the door of the House one day, I noticed that a small patch
of the lattice-work of dull brass shone like burnished gold.
Some time afterwards I asked an attendant if he could
explain the reason.

" That," said he, " is the place where Mrs. Gladstone sits
to watch the Grand Old Man whenever he has a big speech
to make. She rests one hand on the grating and the friction,
as you see, has worn it bright."

Often afterwards, from the floor of the House, when the
old man was speaking, I watched the eager face of his wife
in her accustomed place close to the grille with one hand
resting lightly on the grating.

There seemed to me something wonderfully touching in
love that survives through more than half a century : —

That feeling that after long years have gone by
Remains like a portrait we've sat for in youth ;
What e'en though the flush of the colours may fly,
The features still live in their first smiling youth.

Indeed, the one fault I have to find with Viscount Morley's
Life of Gladstone, is that Mrs. Gladstone fills so small a place
in the work, when in the real life she filled so large. Old
Boswell would have been more human and more gallant.

Uncomfortable as is the Ladies' Gallery, the competition
for seats, especially on a gala night, is wonderfully keen

214 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Each Member is (or was, before the coming of the suffragettes)
permitted to put a little folded docket containing his name
into a ballot-box, entitling him to two seats in the Ladies'
Gallery. The papers are drawn by the Serjeant-at-Arms,
and places are allotted in order of precedence to the success-
ful balloters.

I remember a schoolboy trick of ours was to fold up the
ballot papers with as many angles and corners as possible
in hopes that it might arrest the finger-tips of the impartial
Ser j eant-at-Arms.

The popularity of the Ladies' Gallery was largely due to the
fact that a seat there almost invariably involved in the
summer-time a tea on the Terrace — one of the most delight-
ful and popular of the social functions of London.

The Terrace of the House of Commons is, as everybody,
or nearly everybody, knows, a vast platform stretching along
the Thames, where pleasure-boats and barges go gliding
slowly by.

The invasion of the Terrace by ladies is a modern develop-
ment, to which some crusty old bachelors of the House at
first strongly objected. To meet their objection a small,
railed-off portion was reserved for " gentlemen only " ; but
the ridicule they encountered when they sought the seclusion
of this pen soon led to its removal, and the whole Terrace
became the happy hunting-ground of the ladies.

In the season it was crowded with the rank and fashion
of London, the whole space dotted over with tables on which
tea, coffee and strawberries were liberally provided.
Occasionally, too, ladies dined with Members in specially
reserved rooms, but the rooms so reserved were amongst
the smallest and dingiest of the building and were bespoken a
week in advance.

Still, a dinner in the House of Commons was, in spite of
all these difficulties and discomforts, or perhaps because of
them, a coveted dissipation.

Among many disabilities the ladies had, however, one
exclusive privilege. Beside the inner door of the Legislative
Chamber there is a nook of about two feet high which looks
in through a glass window upon the Members. Ladies,

THE RULES OF THE GAME 215

accompanied by a Member, were privileged to stand there
for a couple of minutes at a time and have a clear view of
the Chamber and its occupants, which was impossible from
the Ladies' Gallery. This was a privilege to which no male
outsider was allowed.

I believe the freaks of the suffragettes have caused it to
be wholly abolished. After an ultra-enthusiast had taken
advantage of the opportunity to burst through the swinging
doors and race up the floor of the House shouting, " Votes
for Women ! " the Speaker decided he would take no risks
for the future.

CHAPTER XXII
THE TERRORS OF THE HOUSE

A maiden speech — Called to order — Chamberlain and the Lords — Queen
Anne and Queen Victoria — A misconception — An unparalleled scene —
Herod and Judas — The fight on the floor — A general scrimmage —
Members come to fisticuffs — The beginning of the end.

VERY terrifying is the atmosphere of the Legislative
Chamber to a new Member. It inspires a strange
feeling of awe from which even the most audacious is not
exempt. I have heard that Mr. Healy, when little more
than a boy, on his very first night in the House, attacked
Lord Hartington in a speech of superb vituperation. But
he was the single splendid exception. The antiquity of
the House of Commons, the splendour of its traditions, the
power of which it is the repository, completely overawes the
novice. He enters with fear and trembling, he shrinks from
notice, he trembles at the sound of his own voice. This I
take it is the cause why so many great orators break down
in their maiden speeches. For the first few weeks a little
nervous shiver ran down my back as I stole to my seat, and
the mere thought of speaking took my breath away.

My own voice had a strange hollow sound when I asked
my first question in the historic Chamber. But I resolved
to speak, and did early in the session, though it must be
confessed that my maiden speech was a most embarrassing
and disappointing performance. I carefully got my thoughts
together, but having a speech ready and being let fire it off
are two different things in the House of Commons. Half a
dozen times one evening I popped up, hat in hand, to catch
the Speaker's eye, and each time, in cricket parlance, I
muffed the catch. I had an uneasy feeling of the comicality
of the performance, and had almost determined to give up
when my chance came at last. The Speaker sang out my

216

THE TERRORS OF THE HOUSE 217

name in resonant tones. My heart gave a great throb and
then ceased beating as I rose to address the House.

" Mr. Speaker/' I began in the orthodox form, and was
astounded by a sudden interruption.

" Order, order/' cried the Speaker, and skipping out of
his chair departed for his tea. Then the House emptied
rapidly, and I was left waiting alone in a very fever of
nervousness for the Speaker's return. The clock itself
seemed to have taken an interval for refreshment, for the
next twenty minutes, to my impatient imagination, slowly
stretched out to two hours. At last the Speaker returned,
but only the Speaker, misguided Members preferred their
dinners to my oratory, so my maiden speech was delivered
to the Chair, the Serjeant-at-Arms and a wilderness of
empty green benches ; my jokes fell flat on irresponsive
vacancy, and my careful peroration turned to pure
burlesque.

As a novice I naturally flew at high game. Mr. Chamber-
lain was then the pet aversion of the whole Irish party, and
against Mr. Chamberlain my maiden speech was directed.
I made fun of his declaration just before the General
Election that Home Rule was as dead as Queen Anne. I
was surprised, I said, that the right honourable gentleman
thought it worth his while to take part in the debate. If
Home Rule was as dead as Queen Anne, there was nothing
to be gained by its dissection. But I rather thought that
he and other Unionists would find, in the words of the
immortal Mantalini, that Home Rule was " a demmed
uncomfortable corpse." If Queen Anne was as much alive
as Home Rule was, it would be a blue look-out for her
Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria. I quoted Goldsmith at
portentous length to illustrate his relations with Mr.
Gladstone : —

The dog and man at first were friends,

But then a pique began. .
The dog to gain some private ends

Went mad and bit the man.
But soon a wonder came to light,

To show the rogues they lied.
The man recovered from the bite,

The dog it was that died.

218 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Finally I had the almost unique, if unenviable, experience
of being called to order by the Speaker in my maiden
speech. I repeated Mr. Chamberlain's description of the
House of Lords, in what he afterwards called " his Radical
days."

" I am rather thankful than otherwise to gentlemen who
will take the trouble of wearing robes and coronets and
keeping up a certain state of splendour which is pleasing to
look on. They are ancient monuments, and I for one would
be very sorry to deface them. But I do not admit that we
can build on those interesting ruins the foundation of our
government. I cannot allow these venerable antiquities "

Here the Speaker pulled me up abruptly, but I had the
satisfaction of explaining that the words objected to were
Mr. Chamberlain's, not mine, and I was quite content when
he retorted that they were not words that could be used in
the House of Commons.

There was a curious sequel to my allusion to Queen Anne
and Queen Victoria. Next night a card was sent to me,
and in the Lobby I was greeted by a handsome and superbly
groomed young man, who explained that he was the Hon.
Secretary of the " White Rose League," and claimed me
as an adherent of the Stuart queen.

Once I had got my maiden speech off my chest my nervous-
ness rapidly vanished. Familiarity with the House of
Commons if it did not breed contempt, at least dissipated
terror. I learned to loll at my ease on the sacred green
benches, I no longer trembled at the sound of my own voice,
and found it an easy matter to chip into a debate whenever
I felt so inclined.

It was my good (or bad) fortune to be present at the
wildest scene, and the fiercest, ever witnessed in the
House of Commons since the day when Cromwell with his
Ironsides broke into the Legislative Chamber, scoffed at
Sir Harry Vane and ordered the soldiers to " remove that
bauble " — meaning thereby the venerated mace.

It was the night when Mr. Gladstone had determined to
cut his way through a mass of dilatory amendments to the
third reading of his Home Rule Bill For many months

THE TERRORS OF THE HOUSE 219

the measure had been openly and systematically obstructed
by the Opposition with an infinite number of devices.
Finally Mr. Gladstone preferred his indictment against
obstruction, and it was sentenced to the guillotine. When
the fateful night of the execution arrived the air of the place
seemed electric with the passions which had been aroused.
Once again the House was crammed to its utmost capacity,
seats were engaged twelve hours in advance, and for the
unwise legislators who had not taken their precautions
beforehand, only standing room was available ; benches,
floors and galleries were all densely crowded.

The debate was animated from the first, but waxed in
passion and fervour as it proceeded. Cheers and counter
cheers roared across from the opposing benches like broad-
sides in a naval battle ; hotter and hotter grew the temper
of the House, while the hands of the clock crept slowly
round to the fatal hour of twelve when the guillotine must
fall.

In the very height of this seething excitement Mr. Chamber-
lain— slim, sleek and neatly groomed, with a star of white
orchid in his buttonhole — rose to conclude the debate. His
voice was smoothly modulated, his words carefully chosen,
he spoke with precise deliberation, but there was a sting
in every pointed sentence that pricked the fiery passion of
the House like a spur to a high-mettled and over-excited
steed. At last the climax came. With mockery and malice
in his soft tones, he insinuated insulting comparisons
between Mr. Gladstone and Herod, quoting the appalling
description in the Scriptures of the downfall of the Jewish
king.

At the first uttering of the word " Herod," the storm of
passion broke loose among the followers of Mr. Gladstone,
and the answering cry of " Judas ! Judas ! " came back
from a score of voices hoarse with rage, the dominating
tones of Mr. T. P. O' Conner heard plainly above the
tumult. There followed a scene without parallel in the
British House of Commons.

Mr. Chamberlain had plainly anticipated the storm.
He reserved the attack on Mr. Gladstone to the peroration

220 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

of his speech, and just as the hour hand of the clock touched
the allotted hour he dropped into his seat, smiling sardonically
at the tumult he had evoked.

The Chairman of the House rose to put the question, in
compliance with the motion already passed, but his feeble
voice was drowned in the all-pervading din. On the Tory
benches was seen the figure of Mr. Vicary Gibbs, bareheaded,
waving both arms wildly and shouting in dumb show a
frantic appeal to the Chair, but no word was heard. Mr.
Vicary Gibbs dropped into his seat, clapped his hat on his
head, as the quaint rule to which I have already alluded pre-
scribes, and continued to yell an inaudible protest through
the tumult. After the prescribed pause, the question was put
again, as before, in dumb show and amid the continuing
storm, and the House was directed to clear for a division.

At this the Tory fury broke out in open rebellion to the
authority of the Chair. The members of the Opposition
clung to their seats and yelled in frantic defiance. So far
the violence was of voices only, but not for long. We who
had passed out into the division lobbies in obedience to the
direction of the Chair were recalled by the tumult in the
Chamber, and trooped back to discover the cause. Close
beside me at the time was a Liberal Home Rule Member,
Mr. Logan, who like myself was surprised on his return to
the House by the strange spectacle of the Tories still glued
to their seats and yelling furiously. While I took my place
among my colleagues, to wait results, Mr. Logan's curiosity
drew him towards the centre of the excitement.

On the front Opposition benches, however, he was met
by a furious cry of " Order ! order ! " for it is a technical
disorder for any Member not addressing the Chair to keep
his feet in the House of Commons except behind the Bar.

" I will put myself in order/' he answered obligingly, and
dropped down into the vacant seat of the Leader of the
Opposition.

That was the signal for violence. The Tories flung them-
selves upon him in front and rear, and tried to hustle him
from his place. Mr. Fisher (then private secretary to Mr.
Balfour) was the most violent in the attack. The Irish

THE TERRORS OF THE HOUSE 221

Members rose to a man at the sight of a scrimmage and
moved in the direction, impelled so far rather by curiosity
than by anger, but the pressure in the rear pushed those in
front across the gangway into the Tory territory. The
Tories leaped up to repel the boarders. Colonel Saunderson,
with an Irishman's readiness for a fight, led the assault,
and striking out fiercely with clenched fist met the un-
offending Mr. Austin in the face.

The next moment Mr. Crean struck back as fiercely ;
the blow caught Colonel Saunderson under the jaw with a
dull thud that resounded through the House and sent him
sprawling among the benches. All at once the passion that
lies in every man's heart — the wild, mad, animal passion of
fight, which civilization may stifle but cannot extinguish —
flared up in a fierce blaze. Staid legislators yelled and struck
and fought like corner boys.

From the galleries the spectators, leaning forward, hissed
furiously at the degrading scene.

The thing was so sudden that I found myself in the very
heart and heat of this tumult before I could clearly realize
what it all meant. But across the floor of the House,
beyond the fierce mass of struggling men, I had a glimpse of
the pale, pathetic face of Mr. Gladstone. Now, for the first
time, he seemed old to me — old even beyond his age — and
haggard with humiliation, for Mr. Gladstone loved the
House of Commons, and its honour was dear to him as his
own.

For a moment it seemed as if the whole assembly must be
swept into the heart of that growing tumult. Strangely
enough, it was on the Irish benches the peacemakers were
found. I saw several men, whose passion made them ir-
responsible, held forcibly down by more peaceable colleagues.
Two Irish Members stretched strong arms across the gangway
between the Irish and Orange benches, and held the he-
reditary foes apart ; but still the fight raged, though less
fiercely, on the floor of the House, when all at once the
rumbling tumult ceased in deadest silence and something
like awe fell upon the assembly. I turned round, surprised
and startled, to find the cause of this sudden peace, and

222 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

found it. The feeble Chairman of Committees had dis-
appeared, and the stern Speaker of the House had come back
into the Chair. Resolute and masterful his clear voice rang
through the tumult, enforcing obedience. Explanations
were made and apologies were offered. In ten minutes all
traces of the unparalleled storm, which had for a brief space
swept away its traditions, disappeared, and the House cleared
for a division.

I remember well a little incident which occurred as I
moved out with the rest. Excited and forgetful, by reason
of the scene which I had witnessed, I unconsciously set my
hat on my head before I reached the bar. Instantly a cry
of " Order ! order ! " was raised by Members round me, and
an attendant at my elbow whispered, " Remove your hat,
sir, remove your hat/' in a tone of horror as if a sacrilege
had been committed in a sacred place. Then I knew for
certain that ceremonial and convention had reasserted
themselves, and the House of Commons was itself again.

After months of wearisome obstruction the great night
came at last when the third reading of Mr. Gladstone's Home
Rule Bill was carried in the Imperial House of Commons.

All day there was a curious strain* and restlessness that
is ever the herald of a great event. An undercurrent of
impatience ran through the applause with which the stirring
speeches were heard. On the closing night of the great
debate the highest flight of eloquence was reached, but even
the highest eloquence could not hold the attention of the
Members, who crowded the House from floor to ceiling,
eager to come to close quarters in the division lobby.

At last the final struggle was over. The tellers, four
abreast, pushed their way through the throng up the floor
of the House of Commons and stood ranged in front of the
Speaker's chair. It was a moment of the profoundest
silence, the most intense excitement ; every man in the great
assembly held his breath to listen ; all felt that a turning-
point in the history of the two nations had been reached,
and awaited with awe-inspired silence the verdict of the
Imperial Parliament in favour of Ireland's freedom and
nationality.

THE TERRORS OF THE HOUSE 223

The instant the figures were announced the pent-up
excitement broke loose. The hopes and longings of years
were in the cheers that pealed again and again from the
Irish benches, whilst the Unionists held their seats silent
and dismayed.

Dizzy with delight and triumph I passed from the heat of
the House into the cool night air. The excitement within
had overflowed into the streets, a vast wild throng had
gathered in Palace Yard waiting the verdict, and when the
verdict came it evoked a universal enthusiasm. Englishmen
and Irishmen grasped hands in fellowship and congratulation
at the ending of the long feud of centuries. All at once some-
one in the crowd struck up " The Wearing of the Green,"
and it swelled up to the night skies in a mighty chorus in
which the Cockney accent and the brogue were strangely
blended. As I whirled homeward on my bicycle past
Trafalgar Square I still heard the distant roar booming
through the night air, and I felt that the solemn promise of
that great night could never be effaced.

CHAPTER XXIII
FRONT BENCHERS

"The Grand Old Man" — Gladstone unrivalled — Universal genius — "All
proud of him " — " Before he dies " — His sprint in the Lobby — Never
an " orthodox Tory " — " The Slogger " — Lawyers and Members —
Morley and Sir Henry James — Asquith — Lloyd George.

MY brief sojourn in the House of Commons has left me
vivid recollections of many remarkable men. Amid
those pictures Gladstone stands alone. It is hopeless to try
to explain the fascination of the man. He towered over
all the rest by head and shoulders ; he was at once the
youngest and the oldest member of Parliament : the oldest
according to the deceptive testimony of the calendar, the
youngest in an almost boyish eagerness and vivacity. You
never knew the moment when he would start a brilliant
surprise on the House. Sometimes he brightened the dull
tedium of the dinner-hour with a brilliant flash of oratory
that brought Members hurrying in from their half-finished
meal ; sometimes on an outside subject, raised on what I may
call the " off nights " devoted to private Members, he appeared,
radiant, with a red rose in his button-hole, to contribute a
lively little speech to the enlivenment of a dry, academic
debate.

He lent to the place the light and animation of genius,
he provided the Members with a succession of brilliant
surprises. In every form of parliamentary service he was
not merely great, but the greatest. Of his eloquence there
is no need to speak. In a set speech he was absolutely
overpowering, obstacles and opposition melted away before
that full torrent of close reasoning and irresistible appeal.
But in answering a question across the floor of the House,
in a quick interruption, in untying a parliamentary knot,
in chaffing a prosy speaker, in recovering a reverse in debate,

224

FRONT BENCHERS 225

.and turning a defeat into victory, the adroitness of the old
parliamentary hand was supreme.

I have heard it said that Gladstone had no sense of
humour ; my experience gives the lie to that calumny. I
never heard anything more delicately humorous than his
playful badinage of Mr. Jesse Collings, or more caustically
humorous than his trenchant attacks on Mr. Chamberlain.

His adroitness in debate was almost miraculous. Once in
his absence the ministerial benches got into a muddle over
an amendment proposed by the Opposition. The amend-
ment was one that should have been accepted at the first,
but the Government, having once committed themselves to
refusal, doggedly persisted in opposing it.

Mr. Sexton, in a brief speech, tried to help them out of the
slough into which they had plunged, but they would not be
helped, and they were still floundering when Mr. Gladstone
came suddenly on the scene and plumped down in his usual
place between Mr. Morley and Sir William Harcourt. From
my seat on the other side of the House I saw him rapidly
collect, apparently from both men at the same time, a brief
summary of what had gone on in his absence.

It took him no more than three minutes to grasp the
situation, and when Mr. Balfour sat down after an extremely
effective speech, in which he had bantered the Ministers to
his heart's content, Mr. Gladstone rose to reply.

He began with a brilliant attack on the Opposition, ridi-
culing the speakers and speeches on the other side. He
declared that Mr. Balfour had " envenomed the debate."
Then under cover of this attack he proceeded to change the
position of the Government. He paid a graceful compliment
to Mr. Sexton.

" I myself/' he said, " have been much influenced in
my judgment by the speech of the honourable Member
for Kerry." Thereupon the Opposition shouted their
derision.

" What ! " exclaimed Mr. Gladstone indignantly, " will
you not allow me to be influenced by an Irish Member, even
when he influences me in favour of your own conten-
tion? You yourselves, I notice, are sometimes influenced

226 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

by the right honourable Member for West Birmingham.
Not, I would assume, from any inveterate love of the
individual."

The shot went home, for at that time Mr. Chamberlain
was not popular on the Tory benches, and amidst the
laughter that followed Mr. Gladstone carried the Government
safe out of their untenable position, with drums beating
and banners flying, and with such brilliant assumption of
triumph that the retreat seemed a victory, and Members
of both sides of the House applauded the tactics of the
veteran.

"Tell the Grand Old Man," I heard Mr. Balfour say
when he met Mr. Morley behind the Speaker's chair after
the division, " tell him from me that we are all proud of
him."

An interruption is often most effective in the House of
Commons, though a quick-witted speaker will occasionally
counter the interruption with a deadly retort. The most
effective thing of the kind that I remember during my
experience was Mr. Gladstone's interruption of Mr. Chamber-
lain.

It is the practice of the House of Commons that the
speaker shall allude to the Members who agree with him as
his " honourable, or right honourable, friends," and the
Members who differ from him as the " honourable, or right
honourable, gentlemen."

At the time Mr. Chamberlain was in a somewhat difficult
position ; he had practically left the Liberal party, but he
had not joined the Tories. The Liberals were his " right
honourable friends," because he was still nominally of their
party ; the Tories were his " right honourable friends,"
because he was acting and speaking with them. The result
was confusing. His speech, whether in reply or approval,
was interlarded with allusions to " his right honourable
friends " on both sides of the House. " I approve of my
honourable friend's views," he would say in one sentence,
and " I repudiate my right honourable friend's views," he
would say in the next.

Mr. Gladstone saw his opportunity. Suddenly jumping

FRONT BENCHERS 227

to his feet with an air of eager but innocent curiosity, he
exclaimed :

" Which of his right honourable friends does he allude to ?
The right honourable gentleman has so many."

A roar of applause completely disorganized Mr. Chamber-
lain. The sting of the interruption lay in the fact that he
had at the time hardly a friend on either side of the House.

Mr. Gladstone's venerable youth was a subject of constant
comment in the tea-rooms, smoking-room and lobbies of the
House. It used to be jokingly observed that he had suc-
ceeded in turning the corner, that he was coming back the
other way, and that in fifty or sixty years more he would
be at Eton, playing cricket with the great-grandsons of
his contemporaries.

One story, I remember, was told of a neat retort by a
Liberal Member to Mr. Herbert Gladstone, to whom he
applied for a ticket to the House.

" I am anxious," said the Member, " to bring my boy,
who is home for the holidays, to hear Mr. Gladstone's great
speech. I should specially wish him to hear Mr. Gladstone
before he dies."

Thereupon Mr. Herbert Gladstone retorted somewhat
hotly, that his father had no notion of dying just yet.

" Of course, I know that," said the Liberal blandly, " I
know that your father will never die. When I said that I
wanted my boy to hear him before he died, it was, of course,
to my boy's death I alluded."

Two illustrations of that wonderful vitality and vivacity
are present to my recollection. Mr. Gladstone never shirked
the monotonous labour of the division lobby. I have seen
him in the small hours of the morning, time after time,
march with shoulders square and head erect through division
after division. Nor was this all ; while others loitered in the
lobby Mr. Gladstone seized every spare moment for work.

In various nooks in the division lobbies of the House of
Commons are set a number of writing-tables on which a
letter may be dashed off while you wait, and no one utilized
those tables so arduously as Mr. Gladstone. On the occasion
I have in mind, he had got to a table almost at the end of

228 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

the lobby furthest from the exit, and was instantly im-
mersed in his correspondence. The lobby emptied more
rapidly than usual. The tellers, who stand at the exit door
counting their flock as they pass, and hurrying up the
stragglers, grew impatient. " Door, door ! " they cried,
which is the House of Commons' equivalent for "hurry up."

I saw Mr. Gladstone, as the sound reached his ears, leap
from his seat, gather his letters hastily into a writing-case,
and go racing up the whole length of the lobby with head
erect and elbows well tucked in to his sides like an athlete
on the track. I passed him again just as he entered the
House, and he was not even breathed by his sprint. When
this happened he was well over eighty years of age.

On another occasion, I remember, long after midnight,
there was a tremendous crush in the division lobby, while the
Members dribbled slowly, one by one, through the turnstile.
At the outskirts of the congested district was Mr. Gladstone,
patiently waiting his turn with the rest. I contrived to
secure a chair, which I offered him, but he put it aside with
a gracious gesture.

" No, no," he said smilingly, " it would never do for me to
turn obstructionist."

When Mr. Gladstone retired, the light of genius was
quenched in the House of Commons, and its chief charm
departed. We had many able, many eloquent, many
brilliant men remaining, but no second Gladstone.

The dull round of commonplace debate became duller
than ever ; there was no longer the hope of one of his
brilliant flashes of genius to redeem it.

Mr. Gladstone honoured me personally with much
kindness, and I occasionally heard from him after he
retired, in the form of correspondence he most affected —
the post card. In too flattering terms he accorded me
permission to dedicate my story, "Lord Edward FitzGerald,"
to him, as the " best English friend Ireland has ever had."

I had some letters and many post cards while we were in
the House together, and afterwards. The following contain,
so far as I am aware, his latest declarations in favour of
Home Rule for Ireland : —

FRONT BENCHERS 229

" SIR,

" I return my best thanks for your note and kind
gift. They will, I hope, form a new incitement to pre-
serving effort in a cause which I believe to be one of justice,
peace and all happy results for every one affected by it.
" I remain your very faithful and obedient

" W. GLADSTONE. June 26, '90."

" MY DEAR SIR,

" One word to offer thanks for the volume I had just
received, and to assure you that my opinions and feelings
with regard to the history and the future of Ireland remain
totally unchanged.

" Yours faithfully,

" W. GLADSTONE. July 16, '96."

So much has been said and written about Gladstone's
change of politics, that it is interesting to learn from himself
that he never was an " orthodox Tory."

" SIR,

" I thank you sincerely for your letter and enclosure.
Undoubtedly in 1832 I was an earnest Tory. An orthodox
Tory I fear I never was.

" Your faithful and obedient

" W. GLADSTONE. April 12, '87."

Mr. Gladstone's first lieutenant, Sir William Harcourt,
was one of the great figures in the House impossible to
ignore or forget. A kindly natured man, but a fine fighter,
Sir William was the " Dugald Dalgetty" of party politics.
He followed his leader in sheer loyalty through all the strain
and stress of the Home Rule Campaign. But though it
may be that the personal authority of Mr. Gladstone helped
to convince him of the necessity for Home Rule, his con-
viction was none the less sincere. He has been called " The
Slogger " of debate. His retorts were like the stroke of a
broadsword, not evading, but breaking down the guards of
his opponents. His invective went home like the straight-
from-the-shoulder blow of a skilled pugilist.

230 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

I have him now in my mind as I write, towering in pride
of place beside Mr. Gladstone on the Government benches ;
he holds in his hand a number of sheets of paper from which
he reads his speech, verbatim as he speaks it, but there was
never before a man who could so thoroughly give to a
written speech the freedom, force and verve of an extem-
porary oration. When he flung out a brilliant taunt or a
crushing argument at the Opposition benches, he invariably
turned round in a half-circle to face the loyal ranks behind
him in quest of that storm of applause that never failed to
greet his oratorical triumphs.

Of quite a different style, but to my thinking even a finer
debater, was Mr. Asquith. He was of Mr. Chamberlain's
school, and Chamberlain at his very best was no match for
Asquith at his best. In the keen conflict of debate his
intellectual sword-play was quiet, but deadly, and he
turned the blade in the wound.

I remember one occasion on which he followed and
answered Mr. Chamberlain in a speech of overruling force.
" The right honourable Member for West Birmingham has
been torpedoed by my right honourable friend," was Sir
William Harcourt's description of the result.

It is curious how often a man who is supreme in the law
courts cuts a comparatively poor figure in the House of
Commons. Erskine has often been cited as an example ; Sir
Charles Russell was another. Mr. Healy was an apparent
exception to the rule, but he began by a parliamentary
training, he was a Member first and a lawyer afterwards.
The traditions and restrictions of the legal training, the
anomalies of the laws of evidence hamper the parliamentary
orator.

A great Irish Equity lawyer, after his first experience of
the House of Commons, complained that a Member of
Parliament was allowed to read to the House a letter which
was not verified by an affidavit.

I had heard Sir Charles Russell in the Parnell Commission
before I heard him from the Government benches. He
absolutely dominated the Court, judges and all. His
supremacy was born witness to by the greatest of his rivals.

FRONT BENCHERS 231

Sir Charles had dropped some paper, and flurried and
excited was looking for it on his desk. Sir Henry James,
who sat beside him, stooped down and lifted the paper from
the floor and handed it back to his famous opponent.

" Thank you, thank you/' cried Sir Charles, " but where
did you find it ? "

" Where we all are, Sir Charles," replied the courtly Sir
Henry, " at your feet."

Keen, powerful, dominating, Russell, Q.C., was a very
different person from mild, deprecating and somewhat
ineffective Russell, M.P. In the same way Sir Henry James
in the House of Commons was but a faint reflection of Sir
Henry James of the law courts. He affected in Parliament
an air of extreme respectability which earned for him the
name of prig, and made him the target of many stinging
jibes from Mr. Labouchere. Next to Lord Curzon he was the
most " superior person " in that democratic assembly.

His well-turned homilies are best remembered by a
brilliant epigram which one of them extorted from Mr.
Morley. Sir Henry had lectured the House of Commons,
and chiefly the Home Rule Government, from the inacces-
sible altitude of his own lofty morality, and Mr. Morley rose
to reply.

" The right honourable gentleman," he said, " has
treated the House to a speech which is an admirable com-
bination of the forum, the pulpit and the stage."

The scandalized indignation of Sir Henry James at this
sacrilege intensified the amusement of the audience.

As a rule, however, Mr. Morley, second only on the
platform to Mr. Gladstone himself, was not effective in the
House of Commons. The atmosphere seemed to unnerve
him, he was hesitating, timid and too prone to make con-
cessions to his opponents.

While I was a Member of Parliament my services on the
platform were frequently requisitioned by British Home
Rulers, and everywhere I spoke I found a sympathetic and
encouraging audience, with whom a little humour went a
long way, and who were always most generous with the
orator's wages — laughter and cheers. My stock argument

232 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

that Home Rule meant the bringing of friendship between the
two countries never failed to awaken their enthusiasm.

Once I attended with the then Mr. Sydney Buxton, lately
ennobled, a meeting of his constituents in London. On
the way to the meeting he warned me against disappoint-
ment at the apathy with which he expected the subject
of Home Rule would be received. On the way back he
confessed that Home Rule was the only topic that had really
stirred the enthusiasm of his constituents.

I had a very amusing experience at a Woman's Rights
meeting in Swansea. The two resolutions were Home Rule
and Votes for Women. When Home Rule was safely carried
I expressed some doubts about the propriety of votes for
women, and all the lady orators wasted their speeches in a
good-humoured attempt to convert me, while the men in the
audience enjoyed the joke. What, I wonder, would be the
fate of a man who would dare attempt such a thing now
at a meeting of two thousand suffragettes ?

My constant companion on those missionary meetings was
a brilliant young Welshman, who discoursed about Welsh
Disestablishment as I about Home Rule, and who specially
prided himself on being a Celt. Even in those days I was
charmed by his brilliant and persuasive eloquence. His
name was Lloyd George.

CHAPTER XXIV
PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY

An eccentric Solicitor- General — Briar pipe, coatless and hatless —
Labouchere — "A matter of conscience" — Balfour, his fascination —
Chamberlain and Son — Gladstone's compliment — McNeill's inter-
ruption, " Send for Joe 1 " — Sexton — O'Brien — Dillon — Blake — Davitt
— " The way to the Bench not through the dock " — Tim Healy — An
effective intervention — " Hicary Vicary Gibbs " — T. P. O'Connor, as
a speaker, as a golfer — Justin McCarthy — Out.

THE Solicitor-General in Gladstone's last Government
was Mr. Ridley, a great Equity lawyer with a very
rotund figure and a curious sing-song intonation. It was
thought great sport for young Tory bloods to bait this un-
couth Solicitor-General, and whenever there was a lull in
the debate they called out : " Ridley ! Ridley ! " But
after a few sharp lessons they learned that that game did
not pay : they got too much of Ridley. Instead of address-
ing the House in the usual way from his seat, it was his
custom to lumber slowly out on the floor, and with his
stomach against the table and his face directly facing the
Speaker, he addressed him as if he was a judge in a law
court. But he always spoke with homely sense and cogency,
and soundly trounced his unruly interrupters. On one
occasion as he lumbered into his accustomed place, a much-
worn briar pipe dropped from his hand or his pocket and
bobbed along the floor amid the uproarious laughter of the
House, whom a small thing mightily amuses. In no way
disconcerted, he picked it up, restored it to his pocket and
coolly proceeded with his speech. Curiously enough, this
little incident established him as a prime favourite.

In my life I never met a man so indifferent as he was to
appearances and conventions. One Sunday forenoon we
went out together to dine and spend the Sunday with a
colleague, Mr. Cobb, M.P., who had a very pretty place at

233

234 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Harrow. Elaborate arrangements had been made to have
a fly at the station to meet the Solicitor-General. But we
came out through the wrong door. There was no fly wait-
ing, and we had to walk a good mile up a steep hill to our
destination. It was a blazing hot forenoon, and the stout
Solicitor-General puffed and panted as he toiled up the hill
while all the beauty and fashion of Harrow went by to
church. Presently, to my amazement, he stopped and
pulled off his frock-coat and folded it. Then, in his shirt-
sleeves, with his top-hat in his right hand and his frock-coat
over his left arm, the Solicitor-General for England pursued
his way unabashed amid the fashionable throng. On our
arrival he and his host had a violent altercation on the " fly "
question, which they settled amicably over a quart of
shandygaff.

One of my pleasantest recollections of the House is
associated with Mr. Labouchere. In the dull routine of
business one got to long for amusement as the traveller in
the desert longs for water. Mr. Labouchere was always
amusing, with that curious cynical humour of his own. I am
inclined to think that if he had been less amusing he would
have been more successful, and that that cynical humour
of his was the chief barrier against his entrance to the
Cabinet.

He loved a piece of mischief like a schoolboy. One story
I remember well which fairly indicates his tactics. He had
a motion down for an amendment on the Address condemn-
ing the House of Lords. The Government opposed the
amendment. Mr. Tom Ellis, who had just succeeded Mr.
Majoribanks to the position of Chief Liberal Whip, inter-
viewed Mr. Labouchere on the subject. But Mr. Labouchere
persisted, and carried his motion in a half-empty house, and
I heard him afterwards in the smoke-room detail the secret
of his success.

" Ellis/' he said, " came to me to ask me how many
speakers I had, how many promised to vote, and how long
the debate would be likely to last. I told him I had few
supporters, but they would all speak, and the debate would
probably last some hours. He believed me, and let his men

PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY 235

go. Five minutes afterwards I took a division and defeated
the Government.

" I am sorry for Ellis," said Mr. Labouchere reflectively ;
" he is a decent fellow, and it may get him into trouble ; but
on a question of principle like this one must be ready to
sacrifice one's own father. If Majoribanks were there," he
added plaintively, " I could not have done it, for Majori-
banks would not have believed a single word I said."

I entered the House with a very bitter personal dislike
of Mr. Arthur Balfour, whom to that hour I had never
seen. Before I was a week there I found myself constantly
struggling against the inclination to like him. His voice
was so pleasant, his smile so captivating, his manner so
charming, that I had constantly to recall the incidents of
the Coercion regime, which he personally conducted in
Ireland, in order to arm myself against his fascination.

In startling contrast to Mr. Balfour was Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain, whom Irishmen found it quite easy and
natural to dislike. Yet it is hard to describe the repellent
influence he exercised. There was something in his alert
self-assurance, in his caustic speech, that grated on his
hearers, even when the brilliancy of the speech itself — its
logical arguments and effective sarcasm — compelled admira-
tion. The hostility which Mr. Chamberlain provoked was
reflected in milder form on his son, who revolved about him
as a satellite round a sun.

Mr. Austen Chamberlain, as I remember him, was a hand-
some, floridly dressed young person, who in the dog days wore
a cummerbund of more than Oriental splendour, and whose
delight it was, literally and figuratively, to sit at the feet
of his father on the Cross-benches and punctuate his remarks
with enthusiastic applause.

This same young gentleman was the centre of an affect-
ing scene when he made his maiden speech in the House.
The speech itself was a poor affair enough, correct, but
commonplace in style and argument, and delivered in a
somewhat exaggerated parody of his father's voice and
manner. The elder Mr. Chamberlain was horribly uneasy
while the younger Mr. Chamberlain was on his legs, and his

236 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

uneasiness was intensified when at the close of Master
Austen's speech Mr. Gladstone rose.

To everyone in the House it was plain that Mr. Chamber-
lain had expected a specimen of the genial and dexterous
ridicule of which the Grand Old Man was past master. The
opportunity was tempting — Mr. Chamberlain probably knew
that under similar circumstances he himself would not have
resisted it. But the Grand Old Man was made of different
material. He pronounced a delicate eulogium on the speech,
kindly, graceful and considerate, with just here and there
a touch of judicious flattery. He ended with a generous
compliment to the young orator, whose success in his
maiden effort could not fail to be " dear to the heart of a
father."

While Mr. Gladstone's speech was in progress all eyes
were turned on Mr. Chamberlain, and, to his credit be it
said, he was visibly and deeply affected by the generosity
of Mr. Gladstone.

Before I am done with Mr. Chamberlain let me mention
one most amusing incident, of which Mr. Swift MacNeill, M.P.,
was the hero. Mr. Chamberlain was moving a vote of
censure on the Government. He read a ponderous indict-
ment with grave solemnity, dwelling on the several crimes
and misdemeanours of the Ministers until he came to his
peroration. " We therefore," he went on, " respectfully
advise Her Most Gracious Majesty to "

" Send for Joe ! " shouted Mr. MacNeill in the middle of
the sentence.

The House exploded in a roar of laughter, in which Mr.
Chamberlain, inaudible and indignant, resumed his seat.

Though Mr. Justin McCarthy was Chairman of the Irish
party, Mr. Sexton, as his first lieutenant, generally took
the lead in the House of Commons. As a speaker he was
generally regarded as second only to Mr. Gladstone. I re-
member Sir George Trevelyan, returning from a meeting,
told me that this was the opinion of the Speaker, Peel, and
that he himself thoroughly shared the same view.

Two parliamentary exploits of Mr. Sexton live very dis-
tinctly in my remembrance. The first was the dressing he

PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY 237

administered to the present Lord Selborne for some insult-
ing allusion to the Irish party. His victim sat sulkily silent
with bowed head and flushed face under the torrent of
fiery invective, and at the close was constrained to make,
with manifest reluctance, an ungracious apology.

On the other occasion Mr. Sexton was the central figure
of an incident that went near to disrupting the alliance
between the Liberal and the Irish National parties. Mr.
St. John Brodrick, now Lord Midleton, in an insulting
speech described the Irish as " a garrulous and impecunious
race." Mr. Sexton, in reply, characterized the observation
as " impertinent/' At the instance of Mr. Balfour the timid
Chairman of Committee, Mr. Millar, ruled Mr. Sexton's
language was unparliamentary, and called on him to with-
draw. The ruling was plainly absurd; everyone in the
House knew it to be absurd, and Mr. Sexton refused to
obey it.

Then followed a scene of tremendous excitement. Mr.
Balfour saw his advantage and pressed it home. If the
House divided on the question of Mr. Sexton's expulsion
for refusing to obey the Chairman's ruling, the Liberal party
would either be compelled to vote for it against their view
and inclination, or to administer a snub to their own recently
appointed chairman, which would compel his instant resig-
nation. Mr. Gladstone saved the situation by a personal
appeal to Mr. Sexton.

Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Dillon spoke very seldom in those
days, and when they did speak they were listened to with
the attention which earnestness always commands in that
assembly.

The House of Commons is, however, jealous of a reputa-
tion elsewhere acquired. The Honble. Mr. Edward Blake
came there from Canada, where he was the leader of the
Liberal party and reputed the most eloquent man in the
Dominion. But he never found his feet in the House of
Commons. His stately and florid style was not relished by
an assembly which is intolerant of any " eloquence " except
of the very highest order, and which believes with Horace,
" si paulo a summo decessit vergit ad immum."

238 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

On the other hand, the maiden speech of Mr. Michael
Davitt was an immediate success. Its unaffected simplicity
captured instant approval, for there is nothing the House
hates like affectation. The speech contained one very happy
allusion. The previous evening Mr. Barton, now Mr. Justice
Barton, the most kindly and gentle of men, had, in an
earnest and eloquent speech, gravely informed the astonished
House that in certain eventualities he would take a place
beside the rioters in the streets of Belfast.

Mr. Davitt smilingly rebuked the honourable and learned
member for this indiscretion. " The way to the Bench in
Ireland," he assured him, " is not through the dock."

The maiden speech was remarkable for another and some-
what sensational episode. While Davitt was speaking a
Tory Member hissed out the word " Murderer ! " He was
instantly brought to book by an Irish Member, and after
the lame excuse that he had not meant the insult to be
heard, he was compelled to make abject apology.

Mr. Healy's impish humour made him an immense
favourite, and the House was instantly crowded to the doors
when he rose with Members who came to be amused or
convinced. Most effective was his performance on the first
night of the guillotine.

The Unionists were furious at the suggestion of closure
by departments as the answer to obstruction, and had stage-
managed a sensational effect in which the chief role was to
be played by Mr. Balfour as leader of the Opposition. It
was arranged the guillotine should first fall upon him, an
indignant martyr to the cause of free speech. But this fine
stage effect was spoiled by Mr. Healy, who contrived to
catch the Speaker's eye just before Mr. Balfour rose and
began a speech of delightful humour. For a time the
Unionists enjoyed it, and laughed with the rest at his
cynical sallies. But presently it dawned on them that Mr.
Balfour was to be robbed of his opportunity of indignant
protest, and they began to shout, " 'Vide, 'Vide ! "

Mr. Healy begged them not to be impatient ; he entreated
them to respect the liberty of debate. The division, he
assured them, would come soon enough. The climax was

Photo by William Lawrence, Dublin.

MICHAEL DAVITT

P. 238

PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY 239

reached when Mr. William Johnston, of Ballykilbeg, jumped
up from the Unionist side to move the very closure which
Mr. Balfour had got ready to denounce.

All the stuffing was knocked out of the protest against
the guillotine. " You surpassed yourself to-night, Healy,"
I heard Sir William Harcourt whisper as they passed
through the division lobby together.

The House was, indeed, a big playground for Mr. Healy,
in which he loved to disport himself. His humour had a
pungent flavour that was always keenly appreciated. On
one occasion as Mr. Harry Forster, who had just distin-
guished himself by his manipulation in the City of
" Warner's Safe Cure," which had just been floated as a
joint-stock company, was addressing the House in an irrele-
vant speech, Mr. Healy kept up a constant interruption of
" Warner, Warner, Warner ! " bobbing up and down on
his seat with the glee of a mischievous schoolboy. To the
Speaker and those a little distance away the interruption
sounded like " Order, order, order ! " But there was a
ripple of laughter round the unfortunate Harry Forster, who
daren't protest. Again the climax was reached by Mr.
Johnston, of Ballykilbeg, in whose madness there was
method, and sometimes a spice of malice as well. Gravely
rising to a point of order, he called the attention of the
Speaker to the obnoxious word, and so let the whole House
into the joke.

Mr. Healy objected to the name Higgenbottom, which be-
longed to a much respected parliamentary reporter. " If
I'd a name like that," he said to me, " I'd kick the bottom
off it."

Another name which amused him hugely was " Vicary
Gibbs." Once, when Mr. Gibbs was speaking, Healy nearly
knocked him out of time by a sudden interruption. Then
I saw him scribbling delightedly on a scrap of paper, which
he handed down to me, and I read : —

Hicary Vicary Gibbs,
A mouse ran up his ribs,
His ribs were bare
And he got a great scare,
Hicary Vicary Gibbs.

240 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

One of the most popular of all the Irish Members with all
" classes and conditions of men was T. P. O'Connor. As he
walked down the Terrace everyone he met, men and women,
wanted a word with him. There were few more effective
speakers in the House of Commons, and no more effective
speaker on the platform. He was constantly beset by
Members with doubtful seats beseeching him to speak in
their constituencies. I have heard T. P. O'Connor's devo-
tion to Home Rule questioned, but surely he has given
ample proof of that devotion. If he had chosen to cut him-
self loose from the Irish party, he might easily have secured
any seat he desired in the British Cabinet.

Socially he was a most delightful companion, with the
frank good-humour of a big child. Occasionally he stayed
with me when he visited Dublin, and never was there a
more delightful guest. It was characteristic of the man that
never having cared in the least for outdoor sports, he should
in middle age take to golf with the absorbing enthusiasm of
a boy. In an article in Fry's Magazine I once described him
as the keenest golfer and the worst I had ever known, and
he cheerfully accepted the description. Five yards added
to his fifty yards drive was a matter of jubilation. Once,
when we were playing a foursome at Dollymount, he con-
trived to hole out a long putt.

" T.P.," I asked, " did any political triumph ever give
you such satisfaction ? "

" Never ! " he cried enthusiastically. " I swear it,
never ! "

It is one of the proudest privileges of my life to be able
to claim as friend the gentle, kindly and courteous man
who was my leader in the House of Commons. The word
genial, in its fullest and warmest meaning, fitted Mr.
Justin McCarthy like a glove. I never knew another man
so kindly natured — " a most untiring friend in doing
courtesies." It has been said somewhere that no one is
worth anything who has no enemies. Mr. McCarthy gives
the lie to that harsh saying : no one could be at enmity
with him. Though he never shirked a duty or compromised
a principle, though he spoke his mind freely when plain

PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY 241

speaking was called for, he was, I believe, the most univer-
sally popular of men. I remember once seeing the pro-
spectus of a famous American literary club of which in
their time Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, Hawthorne,
Lowell, and indeed all the lights of American literature,
were prominent members. The prospectus contained all
the names of the presidents, vice-presidents and members of
this club. There was a single page reserved for " honorary
members," and in the centre of that white page there was
one name " Justin McCarthy."

Yet Mr. McCarthy was, if possible, more modest than he
was popular. He was entirely devoid of self -consciousness.
Very early in our acquaintance, when I still looked up to
him with something of awe, he asked me why I addressed
him as Mr. McCarthy. I stammered some kind of explana-
tion.

" Don't do it again," he warned me genially. " Call me
Justin ; I am always Justin to my friends."

I am glad to believe that our friendship grew and waxed
strong during those three or four years of parliamentary
hard labour.

There was a bond between us in the fact that we were
both engaged in active journalistic work at the time. How
well I remember his sympathetic smile as we stole off to-
gether reluctantly from the smoking-room to the quieter
galleries of the House, where we could make copy in peace.

" Going to get ready my shower of frogs," was his phrase
for the writing of one of his genial and delightful articles
for the Daily News.

During the whole of my parliamentary experience I had
the good fortune to dine at the same time and at the same
table with Justin McCarthy. It was in a quiet little corner
of the big dining-room. The fine literary flavour of his
comment and outlook on men and things made, indeed, a
rare intellectual treat. The dinner-hour was for me a de-
lightful oasis in the dreary desert of the parliamentary
day.

Though Justin McCarthy usually delegated the work of
leadership to Mr. Sexton, he spoke occasionally with a power

242 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

that one would hardly expect from a man of his gentle and
genial nature. I remember few things more effective than
his reply to the present Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, who,
as Home Secretary, in a hard and unsympathetic speech,
refused to consider the release of certain political prisoners.

" The right honourable gentleman," said the gentle Justin,
" has not merely closed the prison gates on these unhappy
men, he has closed them with a clang/'

Later on I shall have a word to say about the visit I paid
the dear old veteran in his retirement at Westgate-on-Sea.

While a Member in the House of Commons I also took an
actual part in the National organization in Ireland, as the
following letter may testify : —

" MY DEAR BODKIN,

" I congratulate you on the grand work you have
done. You have certainly been largely instrumental in
saving the situation in Dublin from a diabolical tangle. It
is terrible to allow affairs to drift into such a position when
all danger and trouble could be avoided by a decision taken
in time. . . .

" You have done splendidly for the parliamentary fund.
Before you went over it was under an extinguisher.

" Yours sincerely,

" JOHN DILLON."

It is now no secret that when the House of Lords rejected
Home Rule Mr. Gladstone was in favour of appealing to
the country. He was overruled and retired, and Lord
Rosebery slipped into his place. In his first speech as
Prime Minister Lord Rosebery declared that there was " no
change of policy, only a disastrous change of leaders." The
last part of the sentence, at least, proved pitifully true.
From the date of Mr. Gladstone's retirement the session was
an anti-climax. We plodded through routine work, the
Irish party loyally backing up their Liberal allies who had
passed Home Rule. Often when I hear afterwards of Ireland's
ingratitude to the Liberal party I remember that dreary
period when the Irish party loyally helped the Liberals to

PORTRAITS FROM MEMORY 243

hold their places and pass their Bills with the assurance of
a reciprocal loyalty to Home Rule.

The end came suddenly at last.

There was a snap division in a thin House, and the Liberals
were put to their choice — either rescind the vote, which they
could easily have done, if so disposed, or go to the country.
The issue at the General Election was raised in Mr. Morley's
famous phrase " to mend or end the House of Lords." But
the Liberals were hampered with the leadership of a lord,
whose shuffling and faltering at every step led them to
ruin.

For myself, I dropped out of Parliament quietly, though,
let me confess, reluctantly as well.

I look back over my time there with a curious fascination.
I do not regret the experience so dearly bought. It is some-
thing, it is much, to have recorded a vote in that momentous
division on Home Rule ; it is much to have mingled as an
actor, however humble, in those momentous happenings.

Would I like to be back again ? Let me be quite frank
and confess I would. The House of Commons grips a man
even while he grumbles.

For years after I had committed parliamentary suicide
I could not bear to revisit the House. I had a curious
objection to being stopped at this door or that as a mere
member of the public, and, above all, at the door of the
Legislative Chamber itself, through which as a Member of
the House I passed freely. When at last I conquered my
repugnance, I was surprised to find myself recognized and
accosted by the officials. But my feelings, as I chatted with
my friends and former colleagues who came and went
through the swinging doors of the House (with a big " H "),
were a very fair imitation of those of Tom Moore's famous
Peri, who

At the open gate
Of Eden stood disconsolate.

I had many flattering requests to return, the most flatter-
ing from my native place, the Tuam Division of County
Galway, endorsed by Mr. Justin McCarthy, who enclosed
to me the letter addressed to him on the subject by an

244 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

influential priest of the district, and backed up the request
by an earnest appeal of his own. " I have no doubt/' he
wrote, " that you would be the best candidate for North
Galway. Is your resolution not to contest any constituency
irrevocable ? "

Again my poverty, and not my will, refused. My practice
at the Bar had necessarily been much impaired by my
absence in Parliament, and to supplement my income I
settled down to a new phase of Press life as chief leader
writer to the Freeman's Journal, a position which I could
not afford to abandon.

CHAPTER XXV

THE EDITORIAL "WE"

Tricks of the trade — Searching for subjects — " God save the King ! " —
Campbell- Bannerman and Lord Rosebery — Raising the flag of Home
Rule — The editor's sanctum — Miscellaneous visitors — A Christian
Science miracle.

I HAVE already commented on the ignorance of the man
in the street regarding the life-work of the purveyor of
news, his ignorance of the purveyor of opinions is even more
remarkable. The newspaper reader is on intimate terms
with the newspaper writer. He chats with him at breakfast,
gossips at lunch and settles down for a serious talk after
dinner, yet he knows absolutely nothing of his guide,
philosopher and friend. The leading articles in the favourite
journal are read and quoted without a thought of how they
came to be written. The mysterious editorial " we " is
vaguely suggestive of an oracle kept tame on the newspaper
premises and ready to deliver impromptu and infallible
pronouncements on every subject under heaven, for the
leader writer must know something of everything, or at
least successfully assume a knowledge if he have it not.

During the years I was chief editorial writer of the Freeman
I went down to the office every night at about ten and
returned at two or three in the morning. Some nights my
themes were provided by the editor, others I had to find
them for myself. In dull times this hunting up of subjects
was the hardest part of the night's work. The choice was
wide, ranging, as our editor, W. F. Brayden, used to remark,
from " cholera to cooling drinks/' and it was hard to know
whether to treat the public to a column of grave instruction
or a column of lively chaff. The trouble was to make a trite

245

246 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

subject interesting or a complex subject clear within the in-
exorable limits. Very often the writer's chief care was to
conceal his own ignorance, to avoid palpable blunders. But
there are few subjects on which a reasonably competent
leader writer does not know a column's worth, and it is his
function to put into his leader everything he knows and
nothing that he doesn't.

A harder ordeal still in times of stress was to keep pace
with sudden emergencies. Very often the editor would
place in my hands in the small hours of the morning the
first " flimsies " announcing some striking event, the delivery
of an eloquent speech, the passing of an important Act of
Parliament, and my comment would have to keep pace
with the " flimsies " as they came from the telegraph en
route for the printing office, so that the last page of news
and the last page of the article should go out together to the
compositors. Next morning such hastily concocted com-
ment is accepted by the readers as the gravely considered
judgment of the editorial " we/'

Hasty writing is saved by hasty reading. Few people think
of criticizing a newspaper. Now and again it has happened
that a series of leading articles that have attracted attention
at the time of their publication, have been subsequently
compiled into a book, but it has almost invariably been
observed that the " thoughtful " article becomes prosy
and the " vigorous " article becomes " bunkum " when
subjected to such treatment.

The leader writer is occasionally betrayed into amusing
absurdities. We all know the celebrated instance of the
writer in the Skibbereen Eagle, who gravely commenced an
article with the solemn announcement : " We have our eye
on the Emperor of Russia." Dickens, it is said, could never
afterwards hear the word Skibbereen mentioned without a
convulsion of irrepressible laughter.

A blunder at least as ludicrous occurred within my own
personal knowledge. A leader writer in the Conservative
organ The Down Recorder was discussing the propriety of
arresting Mr. Parnell, a course which he admitted might be
followed by some local disturbance. " But the Government,"

THE EDITORIAL "WE" 247

he continued, "in this matter may learn a useful lesson
from the pages of history. About fifty years ago, the his-
torian tells us, an emeute occurred in a remote town in
Cornwall. The Government promptly arrested a man
named Trelawny, who was the ringleader of the disturbance,
and conveyed him in custody to London. Now this Tre-
lawny was a person of considerable local influence, and the
miners manifested their indignation by parading the streets
of the town singing a seditious chorus : —

And shall Trelawny die ?

And shall Trelawny die ?

Here's twenty thousand Cornishmen

To know the reason why.

But the Government, undeterred by these threats, inflicted
on Mr. Trelawny the punishment his offences deserved, and
this vigour had a most salutary effect on quelling the dis-
turbances."

For myself I am glad to believe that my many thousand
leading articles are buried in unfathomable oblivion. Yet it
is pleasant also to think that once in a way an article written
on the spur of the moment may have done some service in
its time, helped a good cause forward or hindered a bad one.
This much, at least, I may claim, I never wrote a line that
did not express my honest conviction.

One night when I was at a loss for a subject, the news was
wired to the Freeman's Journal Office that the King's
coronation had to be postponed, and that his Majesty
himself had just submitted to a painful and dangerous
operation for appendicitis, of which the issue was still
doubtful. My subject was found for me.

" Controversy is hushed/' I wrote, " in the face of this
pitiful human tragedy. For the moment men of all opinions
in Ireland regard the King not as the monarch, but as the
man. We see him, not resplendent on a throne with crowds
assembled from the four corners of the earth to do him
homage, but helpless on a bed of pain, dubiously hovering
between life and death. Amid the impending pomp and
ceremony of the coronation, poor frail humanity has claimed
the King as her own, an urgent claim and not to be denied.

248 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

In the very hour of his supremest triumph he has been
constrained to drain to the dregs the bitter cup of suffering
from which no son of Adam is exempt. The royal body has
felt not the touch of the consecrating chrism, but the keen
edge of the surgeon's knife. Surely never was a more vivid
example of the vanity of human wishes, the littleness of
human greatness. The news of his sickness, flashed over
the land and through the sea, has sent a thrill through the
world of pity and dismay. In every country, from the Court
to the cottage, there is thought and talk to-day of the King
of England, Emperor of India and Lord of the British
Dominions beyond the Seas, sick, even to death, on the eve
of his coronation. But how poor a thing, and of how small
moment, is the world's anxiety to the mere suffering man !
How little avails him now the flattery and homage of the
world !

O, be sick, great greatess,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure ;
Thinkst thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation ?
Will it give place to flexture and low bending ?
Canst thou, when thou commandst the beggar's knee,
Command the health of it ?

" Never had moralist a more convincing theme to rail
against the servile worship or the sordid envy of wealth or
pomp or power that avail so little against pain, disease and
death.

" Joined with the feeling of human sympathy with the
prostrate monarch, there is a touch of inevitable admiration
for the Spartan heroism with which he has borne up so long
against the disease that was gnawing at his vitals.

" The Irish party had refused to take part in the cere-
monial of the Coronation, but in the Irish isolation and
protest there was mingled no feeling of personal animosity
to the King. The belief is current in Ireland, and not with-
out reason, that the King was friendly to a treaty of peace
between the two nations, conceived and almost accom-
plished by the great British statesman for whom he always
manifested a profound respect and admiration, never more
plainly manifested than when Gladstone was engaged in his

THE EDITORIAL "WE" 249

heroic struggle for Home Rule. Still, Ireland alone out of
the whole British Empire stood aloof from all participation
in the coronation. Ireland denied homage to the mighty
King in the hour of his glory. She will not deny her
sympathy to the suffering man in the hour of his helplessness
and danger. Perhaps for the first time in her history, and
not in the blatant and insulting spirit in which the words are
so often spoken in this island, she breathes the prayer to-
day, ' God save the King ! ' "

I have selected this article from the many thousand I
have written, because of the sensation it created, not on its
own account, but by reason of its appearance in a Nation-
alist newspaper. It was copied verbatim into the London
dailies, and was fortunate enough to attract the attention
of his Majesty the King.

I was told on good authority, and repeat the story for
what it may be worth, that his late Majesty questioned Sir
Thomas Lipton, as one likely to know, concerning the name
of the writer. Sir Thomas Lipton could only tell him that
Mr. Thomas Sexton was the chairman of the Freeman's
Journal Company. With this his Majesty was satisfied. He
naturally assumed that the best intellect at the company's
disposal would be devoted to a subject so important. He
had always, he was pleased to say, greatly admired the
speeches of Mr. Sexton. " Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves."

One other article I may mention which was not without
its influence on men and affairs. On the eve of the General
Election that dismissed the Unionists there was a great deal
of quibbling among the Liberal leaders, under the influence
of Lord Rosebery, on the question of Home Rule. It was
for the most part accepted by the Liberals as a pious opinion,
but it was tabooed as an issue in the election, and a pledge
was volunteered to the electors that no Home Rule Bill
would be introduced during the ensuing session.

Just at this time Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman made a
stirring speech at Stirling, in which he freely recognized the
justice of the Irish claim and pledged himself to active
support.

Thereupon I wrote an article in the Freeman's Journal in

250 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

thorough approval of the speech, concluding with the words :
" Every vote given for Campbell-Bannerman is a vote
given for Home Rule."

Next day the article was quoted by Lord Rosebery
as proof that there was a full understanding between
Campbell-Bannerman and the Irish Home Rulers. " He
has raised/' said Lord Rosebery, " the banner of Home Rule
in its most undisguised form, and under that banner I, for
one, refuse to serve."

To his Lordship's desertion the Liberals were largely
indebted for their overwhelming victory at the polls. From
that time until the election was over the Freeman's Journal
article was freely quoted on the Unionist platform and in the
Unionist Press as a proof that Home Rule was the real issue
before the electors, with a result exceedingly satisfactory for
Home Rulers.

The editor's sanctum of a daily paper has a strange
attraction for all classes and conditions of people. As acting-
editor of the Freeman during the vacations and other
necessary absences of the editor, Mr. Brayden, I had some
curious experiences. Certainly I had no reason to complain
of lack of variety or humour in my correspondence and
visitors.

The letters that appear in a newspaper are not by any
means as interesting as letters that are, for one reason or
another, suppressed as unfit for publication. The editor's
visiting list is most miscellaneous. On the same night I have
interviewed a pugilist (Jem Corbett), a bishop, an actor, an
author and a publican.

A charming old lady came to me on one occasion to
complain to me of a severe article which I had written
ridiculing the pretensions of Christian Scientists.

I explained that these were my honest views and that I
felt bound to express them, but I readily consented to
publish a letter from her in reply, which I regarded as
excellent " copy."

Thereupon she essayed to convert me, instancing many
remarkable cures within her own experiences.

I stated my position. All these cures seemed to me, I said,

THE EDITORIAL "WE" 251

allowing for natural exaggeration in the telling of them,
to be quite possible by natural means. But if a man's leg
was cut off at the thigh and the Christian Scientists by their
prayers grew another leg on to the stump, I would be
convinced. If their doctrine were sound, I added, such a
feat would be as easy as to cure a cold in the head, and a
good deal more convincing.

The dear old lady gravely considered my suggestion.

" Well," she said, after a pause, " I must confess, I never
came across exactly such an instance as you mention. But
I knew a case of a bad sprained ankle that was cured in less
than a fortnight/'

CHAPTER XXVI
TWO MEN WORTH KNOWING

Sir Hugh Lane, an authority on Art — A touch of his quality — Captain
Shaw Taylor, social reformer — "The man for Gal way " — Author of the
Land Conference — A questionable Corot — A curious incident — The
Captain and the screwdriver.

WITH two very interesting men, less known than they
deserve to be by the outside public, my editorial
duties made me acquainted — Sir Hugh Lane, the great
picture connoisseur, and Captain Shaw Taylor, the social
reformer.

When Sir Hugh gave his first great exhibition in Dublin,
though I yield to no man in my ignorance of painting, I
agreed to write the notice for the Freeman's Journal, and
by the assimilation of hints and suggestions, a very necessary
faculty of the journalist, and by writing all the little I knew
and carefully evading the great deal I didn't know, I
contrived a three-column article that pleased and helped
him. His gratitude was the beginning of our friendship.

It is no place here to speak of the incomparable service
Sir Hugh rendered to Dublin by the formation of the
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, and his princely bene-
factions to the collection ; but I must say a word or two of his
strange gift, instinct, genius, call it what you will, for dis-
cerning and identifying pictures however disguised by age
or grime.

He lives for pictures and by pictures. His eyes are more
discriminating of artistic excellence than the sensitive
palate of the taster in determining the quality of a tea or the
vintage of a wine. The thickest coating of dirt, even another
picture superimposed, cannot hide a masterpiece from those
bright eyes of his. Nor can he explain quite satisfactorily
how he arrives at his conclusions. It is a purely natural

252

TWO MEN WORTH KNOWING 253

gift that was his from a boy. To my thinking he is like
the man in the fairy-tale on whose eyes the magic ointment
was rubbed, which enabled him to detect treasures hidden
in the bowels of the earth.

I have heard many startling stories of this strange gift of
Sir Hugh Lane's. Let me instance a couple that came under
my own personal notice.

One day, as I was looking through the window of an old
curiosity shop in Dublin, Sir Hugh came behind me and
touched me on the shoulder.

" Let us go in/' he said, " and see if he has any pictures."

We climbed to a wide empty attic hung round with
paintings of all sorts, mostly daubs.

" That," said Sir Hugh, pointing to a small dirty panel
that hung high up on the wall, " is a Van Goyen. No, let
me see, it is by a pupil of his, Pieter Moylyn."

We fetched up the proprietor. He named a different
painter. But when the picture was taken down and closely
examined, there was found in the corner the signature that
justified Sir Hugh. Through the mask of dirt he had
identified this second-class Dutch painter as quickly and as
confidently as a man identifies the familiar hand-writing of a
friend. The charming little landscape hangs in my parlour
as a memento of the incident.

Another illustration I may offer as striking and more
amusing.

" I have found a very dirty Salvator Rosa," said Sir Hugh
one morning to my son, who had won his favour by a
discriminating taste for pictures. " It is hidden away in an
old curiosity shop, and I am going to buy it for you and show
you how to clean it." Then, having arranged their plan of
campaign, they proceeded together to the shop.

Sir Hugh spoke to the proprietor, who knew them both.

" I want to teach young Mr. Bodkin," he said, " how to
clean a picture, and I want the dirtiest you have. I think
that " (pointing to a manifest daub that hung in the full
light) " about fills the bill ; what is the price of that ? "

Before the other could reply, my son, by prearrangement,
chimed in.

254 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" I think that is even dirtier," he said, and indicated the
Salvator Rosa.

" All right," Lane answered carelessly, " have it your own
way. What is the price of either of these two ? "

' You can have your choice for fifteen shillings," said the
dealer, and they chose the Salvator Rosa.

When I saw the picture after the purchase, it was a
broad square of canvas caked all over with dirt. Under
Sir Hugh's careful cleaning, it resolved itself into a bearded
old man with a basket on his back. Both Sir Hugh and my
son were in artistic ecstasies over the wonderful red of his
tattered old coat.

Captain Shaw Taylor never achieved with the public the
reputation to which his ability and services entitled him.
To him, more than to any other man, was due the final settle-
ment of the Irish Land Question. For he originated the
startling idea of a friendly Land Conference between the
representatives of landlords and tenants, and in the face of
difficulties that, to any other man, would have been irresist-
ible, he carried his audacious project to a successful issue.
He had boundless energy and a captivating manner; no
rebuff discouraged, no difficulty damped him, and when he
took you into his confidence with his friendly formula,
" between you and me and the bedpost," he was impossible
to resist.

In one of his random sketches Judge Adams gives us
some interesting sidelights on the character of the Captain.

It seemed that a process-server had served a writ on
Captain Shaw Taylor that was meant for another officer,
and by way of punishment the Captain had him locked up
for half an hour in the guard-room. The case came before
Judge Adams on a process for false imprisonment. In
delivering judgment Adams quoted for the Captain (himself
a Galway man) Lever's rollicking lines : —

To drink a toast,
A proctor roast,

Or bailiff, as the case is ;
To kiss your wife,
To take a life

At ten or fifteen paces ;

TWO MEN WORTH KNOWING 255

To keep game cocks,
To hunt the fox,

To drink in punch the Solway ;
With debts galore,
With fun far more,

Oh, that's the man for Galway !

This high ideal of a Galway man's duties, the judge
explained, was no longer recognized by the law, and he
awarded the bailiff the liberal damages of a pound.

" But," Adams continued, " the Captain bore no malice,
for a very little time afterwards he asked me to dine at the
mess. He was a charming and most hospitable host. But
I noticed after a time that, while he plied his guests with the
foaming grape of Eastern France he himself washed down his
viands with that unexciting tipple, Limerick pipe-water. I
said, ' You don't take wine ? ' ' Ah, no/ he said, ' you see,
I'm always at the poor Tommies about drinking, and how
could I have any weight with them if I took wine myself ? '

" After dinner cigarettes were handed round in due
course, and again I observed that my Captain did not smoke.
It was the same reason. ' The poor Tommies,' he said,
' spend all their money in buying cigarettes and ruin their
health inhaling, so as an example I have given up smoking
myself.'

" This, I thought, is quite a new kind of Captain to
meet at a regimental mess, and as the night wore on this
impression was every moment deepened.

" The Captain talked of matters seldom heard of in such
a place. The condition, the sufferings, the hopes of his
country. ' Across the Irish path/ he said, * there were
three great giants, three Goliaths of Gath. The licensing
question, which in its present state is poisoning rural Ireland
by the wholesale multiplication of public-houses ; the land
question, which has filled Ireland with tears of blood ; the
condition of University education, a last relic of the bad old
times of religious feud and intolerance/

' Yes/ I said, ' they are three Goliaths, but where is
David the son of Jesse ? '

' Upon my word/ he said, ' I sometimes think I will have
a try at them myself.'

256 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" My eye caught that of an officer at the other side of the
table who had heard some of the conversation. Our mutual
glance had a plain meaning. Turned into plain English
it was ' amiable dreamer/

" In due course the regiment left Limerick, and was sent
to the war, where my host was stricken with a deadly illness.
I heard that he had come home and recovered his health,
and then when he was slipping from my memory I began to
see his name in the papers.

" After a little time I made a strange discovery. That
night I had met unawares the true Jack the Giant Killer.
This young soldier was no amiable dreamer, but a man at the
sound of whose trumpet ancient wrongs fell down. This
young man was, indeed, a new David, the son of Jesse. At
the first pebble from his scrip — the summons to the Licens-
ing Conference in Dublin — the licensing scandal fell to earth.
At the second — the summons to the Land Conference — the
land question was settled. A third pebble has been hurled
from the sling, and, behold, that venerable Goliath, the
intolerance which refuses justice to Ireland in the matter of
Catholic education, reels ominously, and may at any moment
sink to the earth and die among its worshippers."

Yet Judge Adams was not so wrong after all, in his first
impression of the Captain, embodied in that quotation from
Lever. The old Adam was not quite dead in him, the
Galway devil-may-care recklessness broke out occasionally
in the social reformer. The following incident might have
found an appropriate place in the adventures of Charles
O'Malley :—

Captain Shaw Taylor had an intense admiration for his
cousin Sir Hugh Lane. Now it chanced that while Sir
Hugh, with tireless energy, was getting together the collec-
tion for his gallery, he induced the then Prince of Wales, now
King George V, to purchase a picture which was reputed
to be an early example of the great French painter Corot.
Sir Hugh has rivals who would be glad to catch him tripping,
and the rumour was industriously circulated that the
picture in question was not a Corot at all, but a copy of a
painting in the Budapest Gallery. Nay, more, when Sir

TWO MEN WORTH KNOWING 257

Hugh's collection found a temporary shelter in one of the
rooms of the Dublin Museum there was screwed up on
the outside wall, just at the door of the gallery, a huge
photo of the Budapest picture for the purpose of dis-
crediting the Corot and disabling the artistic reputation of
Sir Hugh.

About this time Captain Shaw Taylor got married. I
don't say he married for the express purpose, but he certainly
made his honeymoon an excuse for a visit to Budapest.
There he carefully scrutinized the picture which had been
the origin of the controversy. As an art critic he was probably
as incompetent as myself, but he had no difficulty in con-
vincing himself that the picture bore no resemblance to the
Corot approved of by his cousin.

Returning to Dublin, he drove at once to the Museum
with his bride and a screwdriver. Having installed his bride
in a comfortable seat he proceeded to unscrew the objection-
able photo. To the inquiring policeman in charge of the
place he explained the situation with an engaging frankness
that quite won his heart. The Corot, he assured him, was
absolutely genuine, it bore no resemblance to the picture
which he had just examined in Budapest. The photograph
was intended as an insult to his cousin Hugh Lane, and he
had therefore come to remove it. The policeman sym-
pathized with his view of the situation, and presently the
Captain drove off in his cab with his bride, his screwdriver
and the objectionable photograph, which he doubtless
preserved as a trophy, even as the wrenched knocker is
preserved by the young man about town.

CHAPTER XXVII

DUNLOP OF THE PNEUMATIC TYRE

The boom of the century — A financial misfortune — How I met J. B. Dunlop
— Our friendship — Full, true and particular account of the Dunlop tyre
— Its trials and triumphs — Dunlop and Thompson — Invented and re-
invented— Troublesome visitors — A lunatic and a heroine.

A CURIOUS chance brought me into relations of close
JT\. intimacy with the famous J. B. Dunlop, the inventor,
or perhaps I should rather say the rediscoverer, of the
pneumatic tyre.

I may say, in passing, that the Dunlop tyre is a rather
sore subject with me. I believed in the tyre from the first,
and when the company was started to exploit it with a
capital of £20,000 in pound shares I applied for a hundred,,
But a stockbroker assured me it was a wild-cat company,
and a champion cyclist assured me that the invention was
worthless. The company obligingly allowed me to cancel
my application, and I lost, I am afraid to think how many
tens of thousands of pounds by the process. The company
paid a hundred per cent dividends for many years, and was
eventually sold for three millions.

My first interview with Mr. Dunlop was connected with a
little bicycle invention of my own, a combined lamp bracket
and carrier, of which I subsequently sold the patent to
Messrs. Brown and Son, London manufacturers. At that
time Mr. Dunlop was chairman of the great Dublin drapery
concern, Todd, Burns and Co., of which I happened to be a
preference shareholder.

Some months later I chanced to hear that the company
was not doing as well as heretofore. But as it had paid eight
per cent on the ordinary shares for the previous half-year,
I was not seriously perturbed about my preference shares.
Close to the date of the annual meeting I received a number

258

DUNLOP OF THE PNEUMATIC TYRE 259

of circulars attacking the directors and management, and
finally was startled by the report and statement of accounts,
which showed a heavy deficit and no interest on ordinary
or preference shares. Then I had another, interview with
Mr. Dunlop, and he convinced me that though there had
been mismanagement the company was capable of financial
recovery, and that a systematic attempt was on foot to
wreck it. At his suggestion I resolved to attend the meeting
of shareholders.

It was the first meeting of the kind I had ever attended,
it was the first time I had ever put a foot on the company's
premises. The shareholders were naturally furious, and at
the outset of the proceedings a motion was proposed to put
the company into liquidation. Then I made the speech of
my life. I took for my text the proverb that it is folly to cry
over spilt milk, and I argued that it would be still greater
folly to kill the cow in revenge. I explained the financial
condition of the company, and so completely carried the
meeting with me that the liquidation motion had only
the proposer and seconder to support it, and a vote of
thanks to the chairman and directors was carried unani-
mously.

A few days later I had a very courteous and pressing
invitation to join the board. After considerable hesitation
I accepted, and remained a director of Todd, Burns and Co.
until I was appointed a judge. Never was there a more
amicable board of directors. During the whole time I was a
member we never put a single question to a division. I do
not suggest post hoc propter hoc, but it is allowable to
mention that when I joined the board the ordinary pound
shares of the company were selling at a few shillings, and the
five pound preference at two pounds ten. When I left the
ordinary and preference were both at par.

I mention this incident mainly to explain the intimacy
that grew up between myself and Mr. Dunlop, with whom
I had many chats about the great invention by which
bicycles were made serviceable and motors possible. Later
still the pneumatic tyre was commandeered by the
aeroplane. There is certainly no man now living who has

260 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

contributed more to the convenience, comfort and innocent
enjoyment of the world at large than J. B. Dunlop.

It is not necessary to describe Mr. Dunlop's appearance.
That broad, low, knobby forehead and flowing beard are
familiar to the world. There are more portraits of him
abroad than any man, reigning kings alone excepted. Kings
have their portraits on coins and postage stamps; Mr.
Dunlop's face is stamped, and a good likeness too, on every
Dunlop tyre that is sold the wide world over.

Very slow of speech is Mr. Dunlop, with a genius for
natural science which almost seems instinctive, for he reads
few books. In the course of many conversations he told me
the full, true and particular account of the invention of
the pneumatic tyre.

At the time of the invention he was practising as a
veterinary surgeon in Belfast, and a little while before he had
stamped out pleuro-pneumonia in his district, an achieve-
ment of which he is as proud as he is of his tyre.

Mr. Dunlop has often described himself to me as a man
with a microscope mind and eye whom no trifle could escape.
He noticed that the solid rubber tyres of an old side-steering
tricycle ridden by his little son Johnny cut deeply into the
soft ground. " What is hard on the ground," he said to
himself, " must be hard on the rider/' and he set to work to
find something that would be easier for both.

He resents the common rumour that the pneumatic tyre
was invented solely for the comfort of a delicate boy. His
son, he declares, was never delicate, and he emphatically
denies the imputation that, intending only to diminish
vibration, he discovered speed by accident. From the
first, he declares, he knew that the two things must go
together.

What he wanted was a broader, lighter and more elastic
tyre than rubber, a tyre that would glide with less friction
over the ground and involve less effort for the rider. After
careful thought he came to the conclusion that compressed
air was the only material that would answer the desired
conditions.

All the same, his son was the direct cause of the invention.

DUNLOP OF THE PNEUMATIC TYRE 261

He chanced to say to his boy, " Some day, when I have time,
I will make you wheels that will go faster than any bicycle
in town/'

That settled it. In season and out of season the boy insisted
on the promise, and Mr. Dunlop, though a very busy man,
had to make or find time to redeem it.

" It was a very primitive beginning/' he told me. "I
cut a square piece from a broad plank, knocked off the
corners and rounded it to a wheel. I was, fortunately,
accustomed before this to work in rubber. I always made
my own rubber gloves and any other little instrument
required in my profession. In constructing the first
pneumatic tyre I had to make everything I needed. There
was no tube to be bought of the kind I wanted, so
I made one for myself with a thin sheet of rubber and an
adhesive solution. This I wound round my wooden wheel,
sticking on a bit of the tubing of a baby's feeding-bottle for
a valve. But if I had tried to inflate this unprotected tube
it would have swelled like a bladder until it burst. I
needed an outer covering. My wife provided me with a
strip of an old grey linen dress, which was exactly what I
wanted. This I passed over the rubber air tube and tacked
it neatly and lightly to the sides of the wheel. Then I
blew it hard with an air-pump and tied up the valve. So the
very first Dunlop pneumatic tyre was complete.

f< The test was as primitive as the wheel. I arranged a
trial gallop in my own back yard, with only stablemen for
spectators. Taking off the front wheel of my boy's tricycle,
I rolled it with all my force down the yard. It ran about
three-quarters of the distance before it tottered and fell.
At the first trial the pneumatic bolted off the course and
dashed with great force into a wall. But at the second trial
it ran straight and fast the whole length of the yard, struck
the wall at the other end and came back nearly half-way to
the starting-point. The stablemen declared that it went of
its own accord, and that the further it went the faster it ran.

" It is easy to understand," said Mr. Dunlop, " that there
was much to be done before the pneumatic tyre could be
made serviceable. My son Johnny had the first pneumatic-

262 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

tyred tricycle ever made, a model which we still preserve.
The ease and speed with which he rode naturally attracted
attention, and by degrees I contrived to fit the wheels to a
bicycle. Everything I needed was still to be made with my
own hands, and I had to invent all the accessories as I went
along, including a valve, which in principle is the same as
that in use to the present day on bicycle and motor.

" But if it was a hard thing to invent and construct the
pneumatic tyre, it was a harder thing still to get people to
ride it, and hardest of all to get them to buy it."

At last, by dint of untiring patience, Mr. Dunlop secured
a public trial for his great invention. The Belfast College
sports in 1889 was the turning-point in the career of the
pneumatic tyre. The chief event of the day was a mile
bicycle race, for which the prize was a superb gold watch
presented by Sir William Wallace.

The event brought cycling champions together from all
parts of the three kingdoms. It is interesting to note that
amongst the competitors in this contest were young Arthur
Du Cros, then Irish champion, and his brothers Alfred and
Harvey, junior, and amongst the spectators was Harvey
Du Cros, the chief promoter and present chairman of the
Dunlop Company.

A young Belfast cyclist, Bill Hume, had also entered for
the contest, and had agreed for a consideration to ride a
bicycle fitted with pneumatic tyres. He was regarded as
an absolute outsider for the race.

Mr. Dunlop has frequently, in his own deliberate fashion,
described to me that memorable event.

No man is a prophet in his own country, still less in his
own city, and poor Bill Hume was greeted with a storm of
good-humoured chaff when he appeared on his ungainly
machine with the " rag and rubber tyres," as they were
contemptuously nicknamed. " I was a bit ashamed of them
myself," Mr. Dunlop confessed, " they looked so clumsy
beside the neat rubber, and I hid myself away with Johnny
at the back of the crowd."

The race was four laps, and for the first lap Bill Hume
kept discreetly in the rear. The laughter followed him all

DUNLOP OF THE PNEUMATIC TYRE 263

round the course. " Go it, old mud cart ! " echoed from the
crowd as he went by. "No wonder he's slow/' shouted a
voice, " sure, his mare is in foal."

But when Bill Hume in the second round began to creep
up through the competitors, ridicule gradually gave place to
amazement. When the third round was reached only the
two Du Cros were in front of him. The bell rang for the last
lap, and he closed up on the leaders. Then surprise gave
place to excitement and excitement to enthusiasm. Two
hundred yards from home, with a wonderful spurt, Hume
reached and passed the leaders one after another as if they
were standing still, and won by sixty yards, amid such
thunders of applause as were never heard on the college
grounds before or since.

" He has a devil bottled up in those tyres," was the
comment of a bookmaker who lost heavily on the event.
There were four other bicycle contests that day, and Bill
Hume on his " rag and rubber " tyres won them all.

It is not necessary to trace the further history and
triumphs of the pneumatic tyre as narrated to me in detail
by Mr. Dunlop ; but it is interesting to note that not until
long afterwards, when his tyre had become world-famous,
that either bicycle or tricycle was ridden by the inventor.

Long after the Dunlop Company was floated came the
startling discovery of a previous invention of a pneumatic
tyre. In point of fact, there never was a valid patent for the
Dunlop pneumatic tyre: anyone that chose could make
and sell it, asking no leave, paying no royalty.

Here surely is the most astounding part of this astounding
story. It was strange enough that any one man should have
thought of running vehicles on wheels of compressed air, it
is almost incredible that two men should independently hit
on the same idea.

Thompson was the name of the unappreciated genius who
lived thirty years before his time, and who, like the second
inventor of the pneumatic tyre, was a Scotchman. Mr.
Dunlop might well have exclaimed : " Cursed be they who
think our thoughts before us ! " for Thompson's invention
spoiled the JDunlop patent.

264 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

If he had been more detailed in his specifications, Mr.
Dunlop believes that he would have secured a valid patent.
But how was he to guess that another man had been there
before ? Huge as was the financial success of the Dunlop
tyre, it would have been multiplied a hundredfold if the
monopoly for a pneumatic tyre could have been secured.
" If my patent was valid/' said Mr. Dunlop, " we would have
earned money enough to pay the National Debt."

More than once Mr. Dunlop has expressed to me his bitter
disappointment that Ireland has profited so little by the
invention. The intention of the company was to keep the
manufacture of its tyres in Dublin, but their good intention
was defeated by the Dublin Corporation.

A disagreeable, though not unwholesome, smell was
created by the necessary smearing of the tubing with a
solution of rubber dissolved in naphtha. The Dublin Corpora-
tion prosecuted the company for creating a nuisance. The
company won, but the Corporation threatened an appeal.
As a result the manufactory was shifted to Coventry, and
the gigantic industry was lost for ever to the Irish
metropolis.

It was the inevitable penalty of Mr. Dunlop's success and
reputation that he should be plagued for advice and assist-
ance by a myriad of inventors in varying stages of insanity.
One instance perhaps deserves mention in the briefest
possible outline.

Some time ago he got a letter with a Rotterdam postmark
on the envelope, in which the writer claimed to be the joint
inventor of the pneumatic tyre. As he had never been to
Rotterdam in his life and had never seen or heard of the
claimant, Mr. Dunlop paid no heed to the letter. It was
followed by a personal visit, in which the claim was elo-
quently albeit incoherently urged. Both he and his son
came to the conclusion that the visitor whom they bowed
politely to the door was mad. They were right in that ; they
were wrong in thinking that they would see or hear no more
of him.

Some days later, as Mr. Dunlop returned from Dublin,
heated by a bicycle ride in the hot sunshine, he was met on

DUNLOP OF THE PNEUMATIC TYRE 265

his way to the bathroom by his wife with the news that the
mad claimant was waiting for him in the dining-room. The
man looked excited, she noticed, and both his pockets were
dragged down as by some heavy weight.

Mrs. Dunlop has long been in very fragile health, but, as
the event shows, she has the courage of a lioness, or to put
it more strongly still, of a true woman when those she loves
are in danger.

" I will keep the man engaged," she said to her husband,
" while you go for the police."

" First," Mr. Dunlop urged, " get him to put his claim in
writing." He hoped by the device to engage the madman's
time and attention until he should have completed the
arrangements for his entertainment.

But the lunatic was equal to the occasion. He promptly
handed over to Mrs. Dunlop an elaborate document ready
written.

The husband and wife read it together outside the door,
and quickly lit on the threat that he would " enforce his
claim at the point of the pistol."

Thereupon, without more ado, Mrs. Dunlop dispatched her
husband on his bicycle for the police, while she went back
to entertain the armed lunatic in the dining-room.

" Mr. Dunlop would be in presently," she explained.
She was sorry to keep him waiting. Would he not take a
chair ? She offered him the deepest, softest, most luxurious
arm-chair in the room, and he sank down among the cushions.

The lunatic grew restless, and she soothed him with
plausible apologies for her husband's absence. Once, while
she stood by the window that looked out on the road, she
saw a policeman go slowly by. The temptation was strong
to beckon him to her aid. But measuring the policeman
with her eye, she found him shorter, smaller and slighter
than the gaunt madman that sat watchful in the arm-chair.
Moreover, caution whispered that even the beckoning
motion of her hand might wake the quick suspicion and the
deadly fury of insanity.

So she let the long moments of agonized expectancy go
by until after hours, as it seemed to her, minutes as the clock

266 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

counts time, her husband returned with four stalwart
policemen. It was Mrs. Dunlop that ushered them into the
dining-room, covering their advance.

" Here are some gentlemen to see you, sir," she said.
" No, not Mr. Dunlop/' she explained, with a touch of grim
humour, as moving aside she revealed the uniformed visitors.

He would have leaped upon them instantly, but he had
sunk low in the cushions and could not readily find his feet,
and in a moment the compelling hand of the sergeant was
on his shoulder.

" You have some claim on Mr. Dunlop ? " the sergeant
inquired blandly.

" Claim ? " he puzzled out the word in a pocket dictionary
he carried with him to assist conversation. " Yes, claim,"
he assented.

" And you mean to enforce it at the pistol point ? "

At this the madman's right hand dived into the bulging
pocket, perhaps to give practical illustration. But the
sergeant's grip went down like a flash from his shoulder to his
wrist and held it tight.

Then from his right-hand pocket the police drew forth
two huge six-chambered revolvers, fully loaded, and from
his left a hundred rounds of ammunition. In a belt under
his coat was stuck a dagger with a keen-edged blade eleven
inches long.

When these pretty instruments were piled together on
the dining-room table and the handcuffs clicked on the wrist
of the owner, Mr. Dunlop could appreciate from what peril
he had been rescued by the heroism of his wife.

The rest of the story is comparatively commonplace. It
tells of a trial, a conviction and a lunatic asylum. The
moral of the tale suggests that kings and presidents are not
the only folk on whom greatness brings trouble. The man
that is lifted above his fellows by birth or brains is always
in danger of being made a cockshot for malice or madness.
But I think I am safe in saying that the only man that
ever wanted to do J. B. Dunlop an ill turn is at present in
a lunatic asylum.

Some months later he received the following strange

DUNLOP OF THE PNEUMATIC TYRE 267

epistle ; but he has not yet made his importunate visitor
free to resume business relations.

" THE CENTRAL ASYLUM,

" DUNDRUM, Co. DUBLIN,

" Day of i February, 1901.
" Letter from patient : Th. Prost.
r< To : Mr. John Boyd Dunlop.
" Address : Aylesbury Road, Donny brook, Dublin.

" Villa Thareldaene.

" Gentleman !

" With this I would ask you most kindly if you can
not make me free from prison, while I would have my
liberty again, under those circumstances you may not
refuse it me. As I have heard here, I am now several months
in prison and which the question has not been so great that
I shall must stay here whole my life, so I hope. While you
have promised me much money in being free, I hope you
will think once good over both things on me. As you have
acknowledged me a great part of the invention has belonged
to me we can be than both content and would go directly
at home by possibility, while it can become here too faticant
for me in having broken ribs and having been heavy sick.
You shall well excuse my last visit content over it. I had
spoke off with your son that we should go together to the
police and therefore I was surprised, but I hope to be quite
better when I can go at home. By possibility I shall make
you then no visit more, and hope in following times the
business shall go as desired and no quarrelling shall have
more place. With that I hope to receive soon some response
and have the pleasure to call me

" Respectfully,

" TH. PROST."

CHAPTER XXVIII

JUSTIN MCCARTHY

Pleasant recollections — A visit to a veteran — Justin McCarthy in exile —
It is an ill wind that blows nobody good — With our toes on the fender
— A good talk — The man with many friends — Glimpses of the past —
A picture gallery of celebrities — All the great men of his generation —
A delightful literary commission — An amusing incident — Justin's
candour — An ardent Home Ruler.

AS I have elsewhere written, there were none of my
JLJL parliamentary colleagues with whom I was more
intimate than Justin McCarthy. He lingered on in the
House for some time after I left it. In March, 1896, I wrote
to him with regard to some literary project we had on foot
in connection with the Freeman's Journal, and received the
following reply : —

" 73, EATON TERRACE, S.W.,

"March ijth, 1896.
" MY DEAR MATT,

" Thank you very much for the information you
give me concerning the literary project of the Freeman's
Journal. I hope it may come to something, and I do not
see why it should not become a distinct success. There
must surely be a literary public in Dublin who could be
developed into appreciation of a really good thing, if a good
thing were put within their reach.

" But I have to thank you still more and much more for
your kindly cordial expressions of friendship towards my-
self. I shall always remember those pleasant little dinners
we used to have so often in the House of Commons. Now
you are gone and Sexton is gone, and that particular table
where we used to sit seems dismal when I settle down |there.
" Very truly yours,

" JUSTIN MCCARTHY."
268

Photo by Elliot and Fry, London.

JUSTIN MCCARTHY

P. 268

JUSTIN MCCARTHY 269

Years later business called me to London, and I received
an urgent invitation from my dear old friend to visit him
at Westgate-on-Sea, to whose bracing air he had been exiled
by his doctor. The temptation to see him again was irre-
sistible.

An incident occurredjon the journey from London which
illustrated to my special advantage in what universal respect
the genial literary veteran is held.

I got into talk with a gentleman who was the only other
occupant of the railway carriage. We discussed Mr. Cham-
berlain, his views and career and prospects from stand-
points directly opposed and in language as strong as courtesy
would allow. In the course of our conversation I chanced to
mention that I was going to see Justin McCarthy at West-
gate-on-Sea, and he was warm in praise of his works.

Now, personally I happen to be the worst traveller in
the world. Wherever I go I leave a trail of lost luggage
behind me. So it was quite natural that, when the train
stopped at Westgate-on-Sea in the midst of an interesting
conversation and I saw Miss McCarthy waiting for me on
the platform, I should at once jump out, leaving my bag
behind me in the rack. Two hours later the bag came back
by a special messenger from four stations away with a
polite note from my fellow-traveller intimating that the
fortunate mention of the fact that I was the guest of Justin
McCarthy enabled him to restore it.

I found my dear old friend as well and as strong as when
I parted from him more than a decade ago in the House of
Commons, his memory as vivid, his humour as playful, his
conversation as full of freshness and savour. He was de-
lightfully situated at Westgate-on-Sea in a corner villa with
a view of the sea ; a smaller villa over the way serves as a
guest-house for his week-end visitors from London. Now
and again, as he told me, he was stirred by an almost irre-
sistible desire for a last look on Ireland. But the doctor
insisted on the bracing air of Westgate-on-Sea, and the
health he enjoyed there confirmed the doctor's com-
mands.
The weather during my brief stay at Westgate-on-Sea

270 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

was most propitiously inclement, windy and wet, making
out-of-door excursions impossible. My kind friends were
distressed, and I was delighted. They had planned some
pleasant excursions. I was to see the spot where King
Canute got himself wet to the skin for the purpose of re-
buking his flattering courtiers, whom I always thought had
the best of that experiment. I was to see the spot where
Julius Caesar landed on the British coast. Indeed, Justin
assured me he had always regarded the selection of this
particular spot by the famous invader as a delicate antici-
patory compliment to himself.

All these things I was to see, and didn't see and couldn't
see, and much rejoiced thereat. I had come to visit, not
Westgate-on-Sea, but Justin McCarthy, and the weather
kindly decreed that I was to have him all to myself during
the visit.

We went to Mass together in the morning in a covered
vehicle, and left the house no more that day, but sat to-
gether in his cosy den, book and picture lined, our toes on
the fender, and talked unheeded hours away. Truly such
talk was a rare treat. It was the cream of a busy, useful,
happy life, stretching back almost to the middle of the
nineteenth century, the abstract and brief chronicle of the
time.

There was no taint of personal vanity or personal bitter-
ness in his reminiscences. His mind, to my thinking, was
as incapable of harbouring an unworthy thought as the soil
of Ireland is of harbouring a snake. He had in his time met
everyone worth meeting and seen everything worth seeing
in the Old World and the New.

What a list it was of his personal acquaintances and
friends ! In politics there were Lord John Russell, Cobden,
Bright, Gladstone, Disraeli and Bismarck ; in literature,
Browning, Tennyson, Swinburne, Thackeray, Dickens,
George Eliot, John Stuart Mill and a host of others. For
this list makes no pretension to be complete. I have merely
set out at random the names that cropped up in the course
of our conversation, and now I bethink myself that the
category omits such literary giants as Lowell, Emerson,

JUSTIN MCCARTHY 271

Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, with all of whom he
was on terms of familiar friendship.

It was pleasant for one who had read and worshipped
from afar off to meet those great men almost at first hand,
to be introduced by one who knew them so well ; but it is
a pleasure not to be passed on to the reader. It would be
quite impossible to convey in written words the savour of
our familiar talk. It is the slight touch that completes the
picture. I knew these men better from some passing phrase,
some familiar incident, told by one who saw and heard,
than I had known them in elaborate biography.

Justin McCarthy was naturally full of admiration for
Gladstone, with whom he had been brought into specially
close relations in the Home Rule Parliament, when they led
the allied forces of the composite majority which carried the
Bill. He admired, as all must admire, the splendid biography
of Mr. Morley ; but he seemed to feel, as I myself have felt,
that it was emphatically " Morley 's Gladstone," not Bos-
well's, the story of

A creature far too pure and good
For human nature's daily food.

For my own poor part, I should have liked to see that
stately portrait supplemented by a genial, eminently human
sketch by Justin McCarthy himself.

Of John Bright he had much to tell. He considered him
at his best a greater orator even than Gladstone. " He shot
his arrow higher/' was his phrase. Justin McCarthy's
editorship of a Liberal London newspaper brought him into
frequent and friendly communication with John Bright, who
held a place on the advisory board. In those days John
Bright 's sympathy with Ireland was intense. Even the
violence of the Fenians did not in the least affect it. The
most sympathetic of Irish editors was not strong enough
for this English enthusiast.

" We have to consider the feelings of our readers and the
interests of the paper," explained Justin McCarthy.

" We have, first of all, to consider the interests of truth
and justice," retorted John Bright.

John Stuart Mill, of whom he had many charming things

272 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

to tell, was not less earnest than John Bright in his Irish
sympathies. I had a wonderful picture of this shy, retiring
scholar and philosopher taking active part in a boisterous
demonstration in favour of amnesty for Irish political
prisoners.

Tennyson, Justin McCarthy found a little stiff and self-
conscious of his own genius —

As if the winds
Blew his own praises in his eyes.

But Browning, whom he knew more intimately, he described
as the most unostentatious and charming of companions,
full of human sympathy and sprightly humour. In Brown-
ing's everyday talk I learned there was no touch of the
verbal obscurity that is such a stumbling-block to the
uninitiated, myself among the number.

Justin McCarthy's first meeting with Bismarck was
specially memorable to him by reason of the unavailing
toil with which he furbished up his German for the ordeal.

To his surprise and delight, Bismarck, speaking in ex-
cellent English, bade him talk in that language, if he had
no objection.

" I am very proud," the great German said, " of the
extent and variety of my English. I flatter myself that I
could interchange slang with a London cabman."

In America Justin McCarthy's experiences were as varied
and as agreeable as at home. He told me that on one
occasion he was able to confound a Yankee who was boast-
ing somewhat arrogantly of his knowledge of the States by
the quiet intimation that he, an Irishman, had travelled
through and through every State in the country, and had
visited almost every great town to be found on their
maps.

The Yankee guessed that " left him standing."

One American literary experience Justin McCarthy had
was as delightful as can well be imagined.

On his first trip to New York he submitted " a longish
short story " for publication to Harper's Magazine, and was
gratified not merely by a notification of the acceptance of
the story with a handsome accompanying cheque, but by

JUSTIN MCCARTHY 273

the further intimation that the editor would be glad if he
could make it convenient to call at the office.

" Of course," he said, " I made it convenient to call.
What young author could resist so flattering and so pro-
mising an invitation ? "

The conversation opened with a compliment. The editor
was delighted with the story. Did the author think he
could let him have some more about the same length on
commission ? "

The author rather thought he could. About how many
did the editor require ?

" Shall we say about a hundred ? " replied the editor.

" You may imagine my amazement and delight/* said
Justin McCarthy, rejoicing in the retrospect of that
magnificent piece of good fortune.

In truth, it was a splendid commission, and it worked
itself out magnificently to the last word of the hundred
stories and the last dollar of the hundred cheques.

A scribbler of fiction myself in a small way, I declare I
can imagine no more fascinating experience for an author.

Justin McCarthy wandered at his own sweet will through
the wide and variegated regions of the United States,
moving where he liked, staying where he liked, idling when
he liked and working when he liked, finding in his wander-
ings and idlings the local colour for the hundred stories,
whose price far overpaid the expenses of the unexampled
holiday. I had myself a vicarious delight in listening to so
delightful an experience.

So it chanced that Justin McCarthy made friends in
America as many and as distinguished as at home.

As our day slid by in desultory and delightful gossip,
whose even flow never halted or lagged, the signed photos
on the walls, the signed books on the shelves or tables, were
fertile in reminiscences.

Just one illustration, and I have done. In a conspicuous
place over the chimneypiece I noticed a portrait of an old
lady in whose face sweetness and dignity were wonderfully
combined. She was, I learned, the wife of Lord John Russell,
who was a very special friend of Justin McCarthy's, and had
T

274 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

sent him this portrait with a warm expression of regard a
little before her death. Our talk naturally switched on
from her to Lord John Russell, whom Justin McCarthy knew
well, and so we were carried back to the days of the great
Napoleon, for Lord John Russell knew Napoleon, and as a
young man visited him at Elba.

On that occasion, as Lord John afterwards told Justin
McCarthy, Napoleon bade the English people beware of
Wellington.

" A few more victories," he said, " and Wellington will
grow so popular with the army that he will seize the crown/'

It was in vain that Lord John strove to explain that the
British Constitution rendered such a thing impossible.

Napoleon merely smiled and shook his head as one that
knew better.

While we talked there came to our ears the faint patter
of a typewriter from an adjacent room, where Justin
Huntly McCarthy was busy translating into drama his
charming novel " The Dryad." At dinner-time he told
us triumphantly that he had completed an act and a bit
over while we had idled through the day with our feet
on the fender.

But be it not thought that Justin McCarthy habitually
dawdled. He lived his life out to the last as vigorous in
work and enjoyments as in the days of his youth. Almost
to the last he partook of the mild dissipations of Westgate-
on-Sea, which, by the way, regards itself as a " genteel
watering-place," by no means to be confounded with neigh-
bouring Margate.

One story he told me as illustrating the courtesy of the
locality, and possibly its lack of humour.

A lady spoke in strong condemnation of society fibs. She
was specially hard on her own sex for their lack of candour
in regard to their age.

Justin McCarthy cordially agreed, and gave a personal
illustration. To appreciate this personal allusion it must be
remembered that he was nearer to five feet in height than six.

" I quite concur with you, madam," he said gravely.
" I never practise those subterfuges myself. I never deny

JUSTIN MCCARTHY 275

that I am over forty years of age, and never pretend to be
more than five feet eleven and a half inches in height."

She looked at him in mild amazement. Politeness forbade
further reference to the question of age.

" I should never have thought, Mr. McCarthy," she said
meekly, " that you were quite five feet eleven and a half
unless you told me so yourself."

But, of course, his chief resource and enjoyment in his
enforced retirement were his beloved books. His son and
daughter fortunately shared his taste. They were a literary
triumvirate who in writing and reading found their chief
enjoyment. Of Justin Huntly McCarthy's triumphs in
fiction and the drama there is no need to speak. Miss
McCarthy has made on her own account but one incursion
into print — a charming sketch of Parnell. But she may be
said, in a sense, to have collaborated with her father in all
his later works.

For there fell on him in his old age one of the sorest trials
of a literary man. His eyesight grew so weak that both
reading and writing were strictly forbidden.

His daughter's unremitting kindness, he assured me,
smoothed away even this misfortune. She read to him,
hunted up his references and corrected his proofs. Her
father was fervent in her praise. " I could do nothing with-
out her," he said. " She is so quick, so patient, so fertile
in helpful suggestion."

The Irish exiles at Westgate-on-Sea, all three, were keenly
alive to anything that appertains to Ireland. Justin
McCarthy, when I last saw him, was as deeply interested
in the Home Rule Bill, as earnest for its success, as when
he led the Irish party to victory in the memorable session
when Home Rule received the deliberate sanction, not to
be forgotten or recalled, of the House of Commons.

" No reform," he said to me at parting, " that has once
received the sanction of the House of Commons has ulti-
mately failed to become the law of the land."

CHAPTER XXIX
RANDOM REVIEWS

The book and the author — Jetsam and flotsam — Treasure -trove — Authors
I have heard from — Una Silberrad — Jane Barlow — Conan Doyle —
Critics I have heard from — Oliver Wendell Holmes — Justin McCarthy
— Blowing my own trumpet.

MONGST the miscellaneous duties of an editorial writer
on the Freeman's Journal was the reviewing of books,
for which the only remuneration was the possession of the
volume reviewed. A big bundle of books arrived weekly
from the London office, and were dealt out among the
writers to whom the work of reviewing was entrusted. They
were trashy novels for the most part, for which there was
no competition amongst the critics. Fortunately, it was
not necessary to read them through. A mild complimentary
paragraph could always be contrived after a few minutes'
glance through the pages. Now and again among this
jetsam and flotsam of frivolous fiction I discovered a trea-
sure. Though our usual notice of a novel by an un-
known writer was a bald paragraph, it was a keen delight
to me when I came across a really good first story to
try to repay the pleasure it gave me by an appreciative
review.

Among the books I met in this fashion amid a pile of
rubbish were Una Silberrad's " Enchanter," Mason's
" Courtship of Morrice Buckler " and Maurice Hewlett's
" Forest Lovers." I, at least, had never heard of the
writers before the books came to my hands for review, and
it pleases me to remember that I appreciated them at the
time.

Now and again, too, I received a kindly letter from the
author whose book I had reviewed. Mr. Maurice Hewlett
was unduly grateful for my praise of his " Forest Lovers."

276

RANDOM REVIEWS 277

Miss Una L. Silberrad wrote from Sunnycroft, Essex, to
thank me for my review of " The Enchanter/'

" You see," she wrote, "it is the first long tale I have
written. I began it when I was twenty-three, and wrote it
mostly on Sunday afternoons. As a consequence it was a
very long time in writing, and got to be somewhat dis-
cursive in style. I am very glad indeed you overlooked the
faults, and really liked ' The Enchanter/

" Again thanking you,

" Believe me, faithfully yours,

" UNA L. SILBERRAD/'

In a subsequent letter she wrote : —

" Many thanks for the book you sent me. I shall read it
with the greatest interest, and value it always as a sort of
token of the kind welcome extended to an embryo author
by one of wider experience and more assured position in the
world. I wonder if the public ever share the writer's opinion
of what is his best work ? I hope it (and the publishers)
will share mine with regard to the novel I have just finished
after only eight months' work. I do not know if it is a
good tale or a bad one, but it could not be other than it is,
and there is a character in it whom it is just a treat to know.
But perhaps one day I will have the pleasure of sending
you a copy, and you can judge for yourself.

" Again thanking you for your great kindness,

" Believe me, faithfully yours,

" UNA L. SILBERRAD/'

Authors, like parents, often make favourite children that
are not the best of the family. To my thinking, at least,
the second novel was not equal to the first.

Miss Jane Barlow, who understands and interprets the
Irish character more faithfully and more charmingly than
any writer I know, in the following letter confesses to the
same weakness.

" DEAR MR. BODKIN," she wrote, " Many thanks for your
kind words about the ' Irish Idylls/ I am glad that you like
' Strangers at Lisconnel/ Perhaps I am inclined to favour

278 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

it because it was, like most sequels, less successful than the
earlier volume ; so my sentiment is like Francis* towards
Cordelia : ' Most choice forsaken and most loved despised.' '

How delicately she insinuates that she was right in her
estimate ! Cordelia was certainly the best of her family.

The author's letter I value most was one received from
the great master of fiction, having written about one of his
stories, " A Duet with an Occasional Chorus " : —

" DEAR SIR,

" I can hardly thank you enough for your kindly
championship. I value it the more because the book has
been somewhat mishandled by the critics. They would not
judge it from a point of view of atmosphere, but of con-
struction and incident, which is, as you have observed, a
wrong standpoint.

" Your opinion helps me to believe that I have to some
extent done what I set out to do.
" Thanking you once again,

" Yours very truly,

" A. CONAN DOYLE."

At this time I was myself a humble writer of books. I
began with a short story contrived to fill a gap in a Christ-
mas Number when I was acting editor of United Ireland.
The result was, after a little while, a little volume entitled
" Poteen Punch " appeared. My ambition as a story-teller
was stimulated by the following letter received a short time
after the publication of the book : —

" DEAR SIR,

"Among the heap of books which I found on my
table, after returning from my summer residence, is one less
dreary in aspect than most of the great pile. It is ' Poteen
Punch,' which is a welcome relief from the dulness with
which I have to struggle. Please accept my thanks for the
little volume of pleasant stories, and believe me,
" Very truly yours,

" OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES."

RANDOM REVIEWS 279

My first long story, " Lord Edward Fitzgerald/' was not
merely published serially, but written serially amid the
stress of other and more urgent work. Subsequently it was
revised and published in book form by Messrs. Chapman and
Hall. I was surprised and delighted at its reception by the
critics. The publishers' acting director, Mr. Oswald Craw-
ford, described it as " their success of the season."

My next novel, " White Magic," had the unique distinc-
tion that every line of it was written in the House of Com-
mons in the intervals of Press and parliamentary labours.
In a column-long article the Daily Telegraph unduly praised
it, but the public preferred the first.

It is not my intention to run through the score or so of
books I have written from time to time. I may mention
that, in my opinion, " A Stolen Life " is the best of the lot,
and this opinion was, I think, shared by Mr. Justin McCarthy,
whose view carries weight.

" MY DEAR MATT," he wrote when the book appeared,
" I cannot criticize ' A Stolen Life.' It fairly carried me
away. I am ready to believe in hypnotism or anything else
which is made so real as it is in your book. I greatly admire
your hero, and I am in love with Eva. I like all the people,
indeed, except the villain, and he interests me deeply. The
book is full of charming fancies and subtle thoughts, and
some of your descriptions, such as those in the woodland
and riverside scenes, have a refreshing charm about them.
Indeed, the whole book gave me genuine delight.
" Ever your sincere friend,

" JUSTIN MCCARTHY."

I must confess that the public and publishers preferred
my detective stories, which were translated into French,
German, Swedish and Italian, and republished in America.
Indeed, what literary reputation I have obtained seems to
have been obtained in Sweden, where almost all my books
were republished, even a book of short Irish stories, " Patsey
the Omadawn," in which the brogue is very prominent. It
hurts my vanity to be compelled to believe that my popu-
larity in Sweden must be due to the excellence of the

280 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

translation by Mme. Ebba Nordenadler, whose knowledge
of the Irish dialect and of the English language is certainly
remarkable. In her very flattering proposal to translate
" Patsey the Omadawn " she writes : —

" I understand Mr. Rattigan's language perfectly. It is
only the word ' pishogue ' that puzzles me a little."

But this book is a record of things seen and heard, and I
must try to abstain from blowing my own trumpet, though
vanity will edge in a few words sideways now and again.

CHAPTER XXX
BOHEMIA

Newspaper office and theatre — A generation of actors — Sothern — The
inimitable Lord Dundreary — Barry Sullivan — A splendid Richelieu
and a wonderful Surface — Contrasted with Irving as Richard III —
Irving's triumphs — College night in Dublin.

THE theatre is an adjacent province to the newspaper
office in the pleasant kingdom of Bohemia. Front
door and stage door are open to the critic, and he has a
welcome before the curtain and behind it. As I have said
before, the Pressman does not specialize in Ireland. He is
what is known in domestic service as a " general," a man-
of-all-work, to whom nothing must come amiss. So it hap-
pened that among my multifarious Press duties I was, with
brief intermission, for twenty years or so the dramatic critic
to the principal newspaper in Dublin. In this capacity I
came to know more or less intimately all the great actors
of my time, on the stage and off it.

One of the earliest and pleasantest of those experiences
was my meeting with Sothern. Few actors can wholly
divest themselves of the atmosphere of the theatre, in which
the chief part of their life is spent. Sothern, as I remember
him, was a most glorious exception to this rule. He shifted
himself into and out of his characters with the most con-
summate ease. On the stage and off it he was equally
natural.

He was in his own person as amusing, as original, as
wholly delightful as Lord Dundreary, whom he created.
Moreover, he was the one actor I ever met who as a speaker
was wholly unaffected and spontaneous. His little speeches
to the audience, when called before the curtain as Lord
Dundreary, were as good as anything in the play. Nor was

281

282 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

it in the least surprising to learn that he had himself built
up from the unstable foundation of a few dozen lines the
part which he played so inimitably.

Once I remember asking him the stock question which of
his many characters he preferred.

" I enjoy David Garrick most/' he said ; " but I know
I play Lord Dundreary best. If I ever live in men's memory
after I am gone, it will be as Lord Dundreary. When
other actors act the part, the kind old playgoers will say,
' You should have seen poor Sothern in it.' '

Barry Sullivan flourished (" flourished " is exactly the
word) a little before my time, but he still held the stage
gallantly against the younger generation who were knock-
ing at the door, and I had many opportunities of seeing him
in many different parts. He was an actor of the old school,
with a curious up-and-down inflexion in his voice, an in-
flexion known only to the stage. A glorified barn-stormer
was Barry Sullivan, yet capable withal of a force and
passion that ranked him with great actors. I have seen
few things finer of its kind than magnificent Barry as
Cardinal Richelieu when he draws the sacred circle round
the trembling maid and threatens to " launch the curse of
Rome " upon the head of the terrified king. No wonder
the " gods " roared their applause.

How easily a critic may be mistaken in an actor's apti-
tudes ! I remember Barry Sullivan was billed for Charles
Surface in the " School for Scandal," and I anticipated, I
must confess, a burlesque performance. Never was a man
more mistaken. I went to scoff : I remained to praise.
Seldom, if ever, have I seen a more spirited performance of
the part — light, easy, graceful, with a touch of that devil-
may-care recklessness with which Sheridan (the greatest
writer of comedies in the language except Shakespeare) has
endowed it.

Barry Sullivan's sun was setting when Henry Irving's
was rising, and, naturally, Sullivan did not like Irving and
affected to ignore him. Mr. Grossmith told me that Sullivan
could never be got to play with Irving, though often asked.

Once, at the Savage Club, Barry Sullivan said to Gros-

BOHEMIA 283

smith : "I play for the public, sir ; I know nothing about
Society. There is a young fellow, I cannot think of his
name for the moment — bless my soul, I'll forget my own
name next — that young fellow at the Lyceum "

" Irving," suggested Grossmith.

" Ah, yes ; Irving. Well, he has got on wonderfully. If
I had these legs and went into Society, it would increase
my reputation."

" I remember once an amusing incident in Barry Sullivan's
performance of ' Hamlet,' " said Mr. Grossmith. " The
first gravedigger was a novice, and was overpowered at the
thought of playing with the great Barry Sullivan. ' Whose
skull is that ? ' asked Barry in his deepest and most tragic
tones. ' I'm sure I don't know, sir,' the gravedigger an-
swered. ' I had it all in my head a moment ago, but it is
clean gone.'

" ' Alas ! poor Yorick,' said Barry Sullivan, finding his
own cue. But the frightened gravedigger did not venture
to get out of the grave. He fled under the stage, and the
effect on the audience was that Ophelia was buried on top
of him

There was, indeed, a startling contrast in the methods of
the two great actors, Sullivan and Irving. It struck me
most, I remember, in the love scene between Richard III
and Anne at her husband's funeral. As interpreted by
Barry Sullivan, the scene was broad farce. His courtship
was extravagant beyond the verge of absurdity. He leered
at the mourning lady triumphantly as he spoke his asides
to the audience, who responded with yells of delighted
laughter.

The approving cry of one of his admirers in the gallery,
" Bravo, Barry ! That's the way to put the commether on
her ! " made a most appropriate comment on the perform-
ance.

Irving, on the other hand, was at his best in this strange
scene. It was the very perfection of hypocrisy. There was
overwhelming passion in his voice and gesture when he
declared : —

284 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

" Your beauty was the cause of that effect.
Your beauty, which did haunt me in my sleep ;
To undertake the death of all the world
So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom."

You felt he could not fail to carry the heart of any woman
by storm. The incredible became credible as one listened.
It seemed natural, inevitable, that the fascinated Anne,
even at the bier of her murdered husband, should yield her
heart to the passionate pleadings of his murderer.

I have seen Irving in almost every part he played, and I
think he played Richard III best of all. The superhuman
energy, the grim, grotesque humour of the character suited
him. Irving was supreme in melodrama (witness " The
Bells "), and Richard III is the greatest melodrama that
was ever written.

It is pleasant to recall that Irving got his first real recog-
nition in Dublin, playing Digby Grand in " The Two Roses/'
and that he was always a prime favourite in the Irish
metropolis.

A very special compliment was paid him by Trinity
College, a compliment accorded once before in its entire
history to the great Irish actress Miss Helen Faucit when
she played Antigone in Dublin.

On behalf of the College an illuminated address was pre-
sented to Mr. Irving by its senior representative, and it was
decreed that there should be " a college night " at the
theatre, and that the dons and the students should attend
wearing a distinctive red ribbon badge in their button-holes.

Never have I seen greater enthusiasm in a theatre than
on that memorable night. It was a splendid performance.
Irving was at his best, and when he came before the curtain
at the close of the play it was a long quarter of an hour
before he could get a hearing. He seemed quite overpowered
by his reception. If he was playing a part then, he certainly
played it superlatively.

" There are some rewards and some honours," he said,
" so unexpected that they may well give the happy recipient
a new zest for existence. Such honours you have heaped on
me, my kind and generous friends. For the welcome you

BOHEMIA 285

have given me on these classic boards, and a warmer than
you have given me here to-night, was never given to any
artist, alive or dead, for the distinction your proud old
University has bestowed on me, a distinction that shall be
remembered as long as the annals of our stage shall last,
accept the warmest and most earnest thanks that an over-
flowing heart tries in vain to utter."

CHAPTER :XXXI
HAMLETS I HAVE MET

The many-sided prince — Barry Sullivan — Tom King — Sir Henry Irving —
Booth — Benson — H. B. Irving — Martin Harvey — Forbes -Robertson
— Confession and atonement — Robertson the greatest of them all —
Stage traditions and interpretations — Slow music — Taking a call.

IT is the natural instinct of the dramatic critic to judge
all great actors by their Hamlet. In this many-sided
character all the passions, thoughts, feelings of our com-
plex nature find scope and breathing space. Filial sorrow
of the son in the presence of death, freezing terror of
the mortal in the presence of the supernatural, pro-
found, spirit-subduing reverie, mad, frantic passion, with a
thousand shifting gradations of emotion, are all displayed.
To every actor the character gives room for the development
of his highest powers, while not even the greatest actor can
hope to perfectly sustain it. Thus his merits and his short-
comings are made apparent.

I have seen all the great Hamlets and all the famous
Hamlets (a far more numerous body) of the last thirty-five
years. Barry Sullivan, Tom King, Benson, Booth, Tree,
Irving, Martin Harvey, Forbes-Robertson and others. The
list is a long one, and I have made no attempt to draw it
up in the order of merit. Almost every Hamlet I have seen
had some special quality of his own. Barry Sullivan, stately
declamation ; Tom King (now hardly ever heard of), a royal
presence and a majestic stride — " a splendid strut," one of
his humble admirers called it. In the scenes of white-hot
passion Irving was perfect ; and his son is scarcely less
perfect. Tree displays marvellous versatility. Harvey is
the meditative student.

In the scenes that made most demand on a great actor's
power Booth was at his best. He realized, as far as man

286

HAMLETS I HAVE MET 287

could, the soul-searching power of awful soliloquy, " To be,
or not to be ? " It is not possible to describe the change
of tone and feature with which the wrestling with life and
death and intense mental agony of the struggle were brought
home so vividly to the hearts of his hearers. One little
touch struck me as almost too natural to be the result of
art. While Hamlet's thoughts run smoothly he lies back
in his chair and speaks in a tone of philosophic musing,
but, startled by the sudden fear, " Perchance to dream.
Aye, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death what
dreams may come ! " he leaps from his seat and paces the
stage with the quick, irregular stride of restless agitation.
In the scene with Ophelia the yearning tenderness of his
love was ever apparent through the veil of the " antic dis-
position " he assumes. The audience saw, with deepening
interest, the piteous struggle waged between his affections
and his resolve.

But when all's said and done, of the many Hamlets I
have seen Forbes-Robertson came nearest to perfection. I
admired other actors for their several virtues, but he,

So perfect and so peerless was made up
Of every creature's best.

He was, in truth, the Hamlet that Shakespeare imagined
and Ophelia described : —

The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword,
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers.

It may be that my estimation of Forbes-Robertson is
coloured by the over-zeal of the convert. For let the truth
be spoken, when I saw his Hamlet first, while all London
was still ringing with applause, I was distinctly disappointed.

My vanity still prompts the belief that the fault was not
wholly mine, that his performance has since wonderfully
grown in essential heat, in power and passion.

Even then his elocution, gesture, presence and movement
on the stage were perfect, his voice most musical. But
somehow to me he seemed " faultily faultless." In the
most moving scenes I was unmoved.

288 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

This feeling I embodied in a column of disappointed
criticism in the next morning's paper. My disappointment
endured about a year ; then my conversion came.

Forbes-Robertson was playing in " Othello " at the
Theatre Royal, and my wife and a lady visitor wanted to
see the performance. I took them there, and then begged
to be excused. I concluded, not unnaturally from my
premises, that if he had not fire enough for Hamlet he could
never reach the fierce fervour of Othello ; if his Hamlet
chilled, his Othello would freeze me.

So I installed the ladies in their places and went off to
the newspaper office, which was close by, to finish some
work I had on hand. The work took me a shorter time
than I had expected, and I was back in time for the last
two acts of the play. In my life I had never a more delight-
ful surprise. It was a new revelation of the character of
Othello. The words the Moor speaks in the play I know
pretty well by heart, but I had never seen or heard the
man before as Shakespeare had created him. I had seen
Salvini in the part (his best), and found likeness and un-
likeness in Robertson's personation. Both were replete
with the hot fire of passion, trembling in the voice and
blazing from the eyes (for where, in my ignorance, I thought
Robertson must fail he most excelled). But even in the
whirlwind of passion his dignity was retained. There was
too much of the wild beast about the Italian's Othello.
Robertson, in the wildest paroxysm, was essentially a man.

My enthusiasm took practical form. At the end of the
play I sent the ladies home by themselves. I returned to
the office, hunted up and destroyed the somewhat perfunc-
tory notice that had been written of the performance, and
sat down after midnight to write a gratuitous column of
undiluted praise. It was an atonement.

When I next saw Forbes-Robertson in Hamlet I found
him even finer than in Othello. Whether the change was
in me or him, or both, I will not presume to say.

It is strange how stage traditions hamper the perform-
ance of Hamlet, and how obediently they are accepted by
competent managers and great actors. I never saw a ghost

HAMLETS I HAVE MET 289

of Hamlet's father that did not represent a decrepit old
man.

I am not a stickler for scenic accessories, but, at least,
they should never contradict the text. Shakespeare de-
scribes the murdered king as in the prime of mature man-
hood. " His beard," says Horatio, " was, as I have seen
it in life, a sable silvered." But the stage ghost has a beard
as white as snow, and looks far more like the ghost of old
Polonius than that of Hamlet's warlike sire. Moreover, it
is the stage custom to turn the limelight full on the appari-
tion, and limelight is as trying to a ghost as to a lady of
uncertain age.

The stage device of emphasizing passion by the shivering
notes of a violin is always an abomination, but most abomin-
able of all when Shakespeare is supplemented by the fiddle.
Still more unpardonable, if that be possible, is the sin of
Shakespearean actors who come before the curtain " to take
their call," as the stage phrase has it. Nothing can be more
grotesque than to see, as I have seen, the unhappy Ophelia
rise from her newly made grave, and the ghost of Hamlet's
father return from " sulphurous and tormenting flames," to
bow and smile to an applauding audience.

In the scene in which Hamlet bids his mother

" Look here upon this picture and upon this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers,"

almost every actor has a trick of his own, often absurd,
always unnecessary, for illustrating the text. Barry
Sullivan had two preposterous family portraits hung on the
walls of the Queen's bedchamber, to which he pointed alter-
nately. But the more approved device, adopted, if I re-
member rightly by Irving, Tree and, I fear, by Forbes-
Robertson, is a couple of miniatures in lockets, one worn
by Hamlet and the other by the Queen-Mother. A moment's
reflection should surely sufhce to show the incongruity of
condensing Hamlet's description of his father to the tiny
surface of a miniature —

" The front of Jove himself,
An eye like Mars to threaten and command,
A station like the herald Mercury
New lighted on some heaven-kissing hill,"
U

290 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

cannot be contracted into the fraction of an inch. It seems
plain enough that by the counterfeit presentments Shake-
speare intended the word-pictures of Hamlet. Hamlet saw
his father in " his mind's eye " in fashion as he lived, and
so showed him to the Queen. But stage tradition, however
absurd, dies hard. I am glad to notice that Martin Harvey
has emancipated himself from this absurdity.

While I am about it I may say that the conception of
the play scene in Hamlet, which is common to all the actors
I have seen, seems to me to be wholly foreign to the plain
purpose of the play. Almost from the first Hamlet is shown
in a frenzy of passion, which would have at once put the
King on his guard and defeat his own purpose. There* is
no indication of such a frenzy in the text. Hamlet is there
a sardonic searcher of hearts who watches " the galled jade
wince " under the lash. A man in an unrestrained frenzy
of passion would be incapable of the cool mockery of his
reply to the King.

" He poisons him in the garden for his estate. His name
is Gonzago. The story is extant and written in very choice
Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love
of Gonzago's wife."

It seems self-evident that those words should be coolly
spoken, but every Hamlet I have seen squirms across the
stage on his stomach and yells the words into the ear of
the King. Surely Mr. Forbes-Robertson is strong enough
to break through this curious stage tradition and give us
the scene as Shakespeare wrote it. There are no such
anomalies to be found in his acting of plays — like Shaw's
wonderful " Caesar and Cleopatra" — of which he is the first
interpreter.

CHAPTER XXXII
MORE ABOUT ACTORS

" Caesar and Cleopatra " — Forbes -Robertson and Bernard Shaw — Vivacity
and versatility of Tree — An impromptu interview — Inspiration or
study — Mr. Balfour's imperturbability — Waller as Monsieur Beaucaire
— A narrow escape — Criticism of the Prince of Wales — Sir John Hare
— His opinion of Jefferson.

I COULD never hope to do justice to Forbes-Robertson
and his charming wife in the greatest of Bernard Shaw's
plays, " Caesar and Cleopatra." It is a pet theory of mine
that there is more varied and genuine delight to be got from
the reading than the acting of a Shakespearean play. No
company of actors, however gifted, can quite realize the
characters for the audience as the imagination of a sym-
pathetic reader realizes them for himself. Almost every
character in Shakespeare is not merely perfectly drawn, but
is important to the action of the play, so that a hitch, even
in a minor part, is apt to throw the whole performance out
of gear.

But it is quite different with Shakespeare's " great rival,"
Bernard Shaw. He needs the help of the actor. When I
read " Caesar and Cleopatra," I found it a curious mixture
of high-flown extravagance and broad farce, both good of
their kind.

Played by Forbes-Robertson and his wife, I recognized
the play as a work of genius. Caesar's character, as Robert-
son played it, was a fascinating study of the " superman,"
great enough and wise enough to be good-humoured,
tolerant and beneficent, willing to be amused by the gambols
of that smooth, sleek, cruel little tiger-cat Cleopatra.
Kindly to everybody and everything, but turning all to the
furtherance of his own ends, and pursuing his purpose
with insight, forethought and masterful determination, in-

291

292 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

exorable as fate. One felt that the Caesar of Robertson's
acting was greater and truer than the Caesar of Shaw's
conception. It was the triumph of the actor over the
playwright.

Of all the actors I have met, Tree possesses the greatest
vivacity and versatility. He gives himself to his part with
the most absolute abandonment. His range of character
is without limit. From Hamlet to Falstaff, from Falstaff
to Caliban, nothing came amiss to him. It is hard to be-
lieve, yet it is none the less true, that he created the success
of that once popular comedy " The Private Secretary," in
the character of the anaemic young clergyman, which one
might fairly suppose to be out of the range of the full-
blooded vitality which made his Falstaff the finest on the
stage.

He told me an amusing little incident of the second night
of the play, which hung fire on the first performance. It
occurred to Tree that the blue ribbon of total abstinence
would be an appropriate adjunct to the Private Secretary.
But an exhaustive search proved that there was not
a scrap of blue ribbon to be found on the premises.
Finally, a bit of tape had to be painted blue to meet the
emergency.

I had many chats with Tree on many subjects. He was
good enough to lunch with me early in our acquaintance,
tempted thereto, I fancy, by a large collection of Shake-
spearean engravings, on which I somewhat pride myself.
Tree was in great form at lunch and after it, full of stage
wisdom and humorous anecdote. As he was leaving I said
to him :

" Your talk to-day was too good to be lost. Shall I make
an interview of it ? "

" My dear boy," he answered, " I would be delighted if
you could ; but you can't."

" To-night," I replied, " I shall send you a couple of
columns of proofs for correction."

The only correction or comment on the proof which I sent
him was the one word " wonderful," written at the end of
the proof.

MORE ABOUT ACTORS 293

On another occasion I had a long argument with Tree on
the anomaly of actors " taking their calls during the progress
of the play," so destroying the stage delusion, which it is
their special function to create and maintain. During that
occasion in Dublin when the curtain rose in response to
applause, there was shown on the stage, not the husband
and wife just parted in a rage and mysteriously reunited,
nor the murderer and his victim amicably smiling, but a
tableau which suggested the continued progress of the
play.

I am sorry to add that Sir Herbert, impelled, I doubt not,
by the insistent folly of the public, has abandoned this
salutary innovation.

I remember discussing with Tree the doctrine favoured
by Coquelin that an actor should put on his stage passions
like his stage clothes, coolly and conscientiously, with a
keen eye to their adjustment and effect, that he should be
always the imperturbable critic of his own performance.
Sir Herbert repudiated the doctrine.

' You must for the time being," he said, " in body and
soul, be the character you act. You move your audience
in proportion as you are moved yourself." Horace, it will
be remembered, held the same view : " Si vis me flere
flendum est primum tibi ipsi"

Sir Herbert once told me a little incident illustrating
Mr. Balfour's imperturbability, which, in spite of its irrele-
vance, is perhaps worth repeating here.

It happened in the time of the Parnell crisis, on which so
much depended, when the Irish party were in excited con-
ference in Committee Room No. 15, and the result was
awaited with intense eagerness by Liberals and Conserva-
tives. Mr. and Mrs. Tree happened to be going down for a
week-end to a country house, where, amongst other eminent
politicians, Mr. Arthur Balfour was staying.

" All London was full of the subject," said Tree. " There
was a buzz of excitement even on the railway platform, and
an unprecedented rush for newspapers. This gave me a
happy thought. I bought a pile of papers representing all
shades of opinion, to help to make my welcome where I was

294 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

going. When I got to the place there was a scramble for
the newspapers like a rush on the bank. There was nothing
else thought of. Everybody stood round reading them. As
Mr. Balfour, who had come down late, joined the party, one
of his devoted followers handed him a paper with a look
that Sidney must have worn when he passed to the other
fellow that cup of water he wanted so badly for himself.
Just then the luncheon-gong rang. So far as the rest were
concerned it rang to deaf ears. But Mr. Balfour, abstract-
edly, put down his paper unread, and sauntered languidly
away to his lunch/'

In the character of heroic adventurer there is no actor to
touch Lewis Waller, and he was at his very best in the part
of Monsieur Beaucaire. The play fitted the actor, and the
actor the play, to perfection. It is a dainty and delightful
piece of work. The dash and daring of one of Dumas'
novels, with its high-flown love-making and marvellous
sword-play, is spiced with a delicate flavour of the humour
of the " School for Scandal." Monsieur Beaucaire is essen-
tially " a pretty fellow of his hands," a hero that has
stepped, spick and span, out of a canvas of Watteau,
whose wit is as bright and keen as his sword, and who
affects superlatives in his love-making. Of Mr. Waller's
acting in the part it can only be said that it isn't acting
at all in the sense that the word is commonly used ; the
actor disappears in his part. There is no trace left of
Mr. Waller, only the fascinating Frenchman with his pretty
broken English, his boyish gaiety, his chivalrous daring and
his playful humour remains.

The play was, it will be remembered, a tremendous
success, and the portrait of Mr. Waller as Monsieur Beaucaire
was the chief picture of the year at the Royal Academy.
Even after this lapse of time it may be not without interest
to recall the account which he gave me in an interview of
its narrow escape from a disastrous failure.

" How," I asked him, " did you first fall in with ' Monsieur
Beaucaire ' ? "

" I picked him up in an agent's office when I went to
look for something else. ' Here,' said the agent, ' is some-

MORE ABOUT ACTORS 295

thing that might suit you/ And when I had read it half-
way through I bought it."

" You played it at once, I suppose ? "

" Not at all. That is the curious part of the story. I had
it by me a year and a half before I attempted to play it.
Then I feared I might lose my rights by delay, and resolved
to put it on the stage."

" In London ? "

" Not in London. Honestly, I had not the money to
start it in London, or the chance. I took it down with me
to Liverpool, where I was rather a favourite and where I
expected a good reception, and brought it out well at the
Shakespearean Theatre. As I said, I expected a big success,
and I was bitterly disappointed. There was a moderate
house and moderate applause. The people laughed at the
right place and clapped at the right place. But all the
time there was a touch of frost in the air. I felt in my
bones that the play was not going as it ought to go. Two
or three managers from the London theatres, including the
' Comedy/ came down to see the first performance, and
went back again by the first morning train. There were a
number of friends of mine in the theatre that night, but
they did not come round the scenes to congratulate me, as
I had half expected."

" Did the papers make up for the public ? "

" No-o-o," said Waller, with a long emphasis on the vowel.
" The papers were a shade worse than the public. Not
abuse, you understand, but just tolerant criticism. Damned
with faint praise — suggested improving away the whole
performance."

" Surely they liked Monsieur Beaucaire himself ; they
could hardly have missed seeing the merit of that per-
sonage ? "

" Tell me what you liked best in him."

" Well, I think I like best the way the French accent,
grace and vivacity are preserved."

" That was just it ; that was the result of just a year
and a half's practice. I believe I transformed myself into a
Frenchman. I learned to think in broken English — at least,

296 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Monsieur Beaucaire's thoughts. Now comes the cruelty.
Three or four principal Liverpool papers quietly advised
me to drop the Frenchman and play it in plain English. I
was a bit disheartened, because I knew the thing was
good.

" After three days of this frost, one afternoon I said to
my manager, ' I cannot stand it. I must have a game of
golf, or I'll break down I ' "

" Then you play golf ? "

" Life without golf would not be worth living. Well, I
went off to the links. As a rule, it takes only half a round
at golf to make me forget every trouble. This time I went
round twelve holes before I got rid of Monsieur Beaucaire.
After that, of course, I forgot everything except how to get
the ball into the hole. I had a pleasant surprise when I
came back. As I stepped on the stage the first man I saw
in front was Charlie Wyndham. That gave me courage.
I knew the play was good, and I knew that Charlie Wyndham
would know a good thing when he saw it. I sent him a
note round, asking him to sup with me after the show.
I must confess it was a nervous moment for me when
we met.

" ' Well ? ' I said, and waited.

" ' Well/ he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, ' you
have got a David Garrick play, my boy. Love, humour,
dash, daring, everything. It is bound to go/

" In that moment my fear vanished, for Wyndham knew,
not his play only, but his London public, and his opinion
was to me infallible/'

" So it proved ? "

" Exactly. A few days later I had a letter from the
manager of the ' Comedy/ who had refused the play,
reversing his decision and asking me to take it to his
theatre. I need not tell you what a success it has been
since."

The reminiscence is interesting as showing how narrow
is the line between the success and failure of a good
play, even after it has reached the stage. It frightens
one to think how many are smothered unheard of in

MORE ABOUT ACTORS 297

the agent's office and " die with all their music in
them."

A comment on " Monsieur Beaucaire " from high quarters
is worth recalling. " One thing struck me with surprise/'
I said to Waller, " and that is that ' Monsieur Beaucaire/
whatever the merits of the play, was tolerated, much less
applauded, in London. The French Prince is the hero, the
English Duke is the blackleg. The old British boast is re-
versed in the play, and one Frenchman beats five English-
men with ease/'

"It is a curious thing," he answered, " that the Prince
of Wales " (now King of England) " made much the same
remark to me when he came to my room after he had first
witnessed the performance.

' Mr. Waller/ he said, ' my opinion of our countrymen
has been enormously improved since I have seen your
play/

" For a moment I thought his Royal Highness was
chaffing, if royalty could condescend to chaff, because the
Englishmen in my play could hardly be considered favour-
able specimens of the race, and I hinted as much.

' It was not the English on the stage, but the English
before the footlights I was thinking of/ he answered. ' It
was a wonderful exhibition of national tolerance and good-
humour. If you were playing in France a play in which
one Englishman beat five Frenchmen, or in Germany a play
in which one Frenchman beat five Germans, they would
have torn the theatre down about your ears. Our people
laugh at French humour and applaud French valour with
perfect impartiality/ '

Dublin has a reputation for dramatic appreciation, but
on one occasion it certainly did not live up to its reputation.
When Hare visited Dublin first with the delightful comedy
" A Pair of Spectacles/' the performance was very coldly
received by the Dublin Press, and, as a consequence, Sir
John, who was himself a great admirer of the play, declined
for some years afterwards to come to Dublin. There was,
however, one exception to the disparagement. In the paper
with which I was connected there appeared, I am glad to

298 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

remember, over a column of enthusiastic appreciation. That
fact recommended me to the kindness of Sir John when he
next visited our city. Of all the actors I have met, there
was none more free from the least trace of stage mannerism
or affectation.

In the course of our friendly chats he complained of the
monotony of long runs. " You have to go down to the
theatre night after night when other people are going to their
dinner, and play the same part over and over again until
sometimes your voice sounds to yourself like a phonograph/*
He was in accord with Tree rather than Coquelin in his
belief that good acting comes by inspiration rather than by
consideration.

" I thoroughly study and realize the man I am to per-
sonate," he said, " and then give myself wholly into his
hands and let him play the part for me/'

I never met a man more frank in praise of his brother
actors. Salvini's Othello he regarded as the most adequate,
the most powerful Shakespearean personation he had ever
seen. The power and passion of it in the awful scene
with I ago shook the hearts of the audience. But the
most miraculous performance, the most absolutely perfect
acting on the stage in his time, was Jefferson's Rip Van
Winkle.

" For one whole act," he said, " Jefferson is practically
alone on the stage and holds the audience entranced. No
other actor ever performed such a feat. I saw him act a
few years ago when I was in America. He is an old man
now, immensely rich, living on a large farm of his own.
But he goes back to the theatre to play once in a while, for
sheer love of it, as he tells me, and whenever he goes the
theatre is thronged to the doors — six hundred pounds at
least at each performance. People who have seen ' Rip Van
Winkle ' as children bring their children to see it as the
greatest performance of two generations."

It is a mistake, I learned, to suppose, as is often supposed,
that Jefferson is merely a one-part actor. " I saw him,"
said Sir John, " billed for Bob Acres in the ' Rivals/ and
I was actually afraid to go, I was so enchanted with the

MORE ABOUT ACTORS 299

Rip Van Winkle, and this was so different. But he was the
most delightful Bob Acres I ever saw. Of course, I heard
the story that Jefferson's mind was affected by constantly
playing Rip Van Winkle, but there is not a word of truth
in it. He was a most charming man to meet in private life,
and one of the happiest.''

CHAPTER XXXIII

STILL ON THE STAGE

Grossmith — An audience of one — His special gift — Snapshots of Tree,
Irving and Barrett — The gifts of Gilbert — His two tunes — Martin
Harvey — A reluctant Bunthorne — Kubelik — A grim coincidence —
Stage comicalities.

OF Mr. Grossmith I was always a great admirer, but I
rather think the best performance of his that I ever
witnessed was given to an audience of one in a drawing-
room of the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, where I had the good
fortune to be the audience. Never was more wonderfully
displayed his faculty of compelling your belief in invisible
people.

On this occasion, I remember, he led an imaginary lady
on his arm to the piano, chatting to her affably while they
walked. When he arranged her music-stool and turned over
the pages of her music while she sang I knew she was there,
though I could not see her, so miraculously, by a thousand
little gestures and words, did he assure me of her presence.

" If," he said to me afterwards, " you talk seriously to a
person in an empty chair, the audience will see the person
in it ; that's the secret. But I don't leave those things to
chance, I plan the position beforehand."

Mr. Grossmith showed me a notebook crammed with
stray sentences and scraps of music with curious little
diagrams scattered here and there. " Those are my chairs,"
he said, " with the invisible characters in them."

He then and there went into a railway carriage, leaving
his wife and child on the platform. I declare I could see
the grumpy passenger to whom he apologized as he stretched
past him to kiss the baby at the door.

Beerbohm Tree, Henry Irving and Wilson Barrett he
passed in review with words of friendly praise for each

300

STILL ON THE STAGE 301

of them and snatches of delightful mimicry. For Tree,
Grossmith professed great friendliness and admiration, de-
claring him a master of tragedy and comedy. Then, in a
moment, Tree suddenly appeared before me in action as he
lived — voice, tone and gesture irresistibly perfect. Irving
also he thought " great in everything." In moments of
intense excitement light kindled in the great actor's eyes.
You could see the passion shining through. " Wilson
Barrett was a fine actor, and most conscientiously original.
He studied Irving closely," said Grossmith, " for the pur-
pose of reversing him in everything he did.

" If, for example, Irving enters frontways from the right
wing and his hands hang down this way " (enter Irving as
described), " Wilson Barrett enters backwards from the left
wing with his hands over his head, this way," and Wilson
Barrett made his entrance in turn.

As might be expected, Grossmith brimmed over with
enthusiasm when he spoke of Gilbert. " I think Gilbert's
comic operas the best of all," he said. "I'd go farther.
In my opinion, his worst — that's not the way to put it, for
he has no worst — his least good is better than the best
of any other man. There is no one with such delightful,
startling, original humour."

" Which of his did you play in first ? " I asked.

" ' The Sorcerer.' It came about this way. As the opera
was originally written, John Wellington Wells was a very
subordinate part. It was thought that anyone would do
to sing the patter song, but it developed on rehearsal. Then
Gilbert resolved to ask me to undertake it. I was doing
very well in society entertainments, and I actually asked
time to think it over. Looking back on the incident now,
and knowing Gilbert as I do, I am surprised that he did
not write to say that I might take as much time as I liked
to think it over — that I might keep on thinking over it
while someone else was playing it.

" Curiously enough, the ' Sorcerer/ though one of the
very cleverest of Gilbert's things, did not go at first, and
I am vain enough to think that I helped to pull it along
with the teapot scene and dance and with a respectable

302 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

descent into Hades. ' Pinafore ' did not do well, either, at
first in London. But it had a tremendous success in America.
The Americans declared that the Londoners did not know a
good thing when they got it. Then the Londoners were put
on their mettle and flocked to the piece, and it ran for two
years. I had a curious experience in ' Pinafore/ the most
curious of my career. It was run first by a syndicate. They
stopped the piece and closed the theatre about Christmas.
But Mr. D'Oyly Carte, Mr. Gunn, Mr. Gilbert and some
others reopened the theatre, and set the piece merrily run-
ning again. Then there was a royal row between the rival
claimants, and one night, when the opera was in full swing,
the syndicate invaded the theatre and attempted to carry
off our scenery. I was singing Sir Joseph Porter's song at
the time with my chorus of mariners. But the mariners
were called off suddenly to repel boarders in the wings, and
with their stage pikes they put the invaders to flight."

Here Grossmith gave a lightning sketch of a respectable
invader in full flight with a sharp-pointed spear at his rear.

" It was in ' Pinafore ' that I had the longest run, nearly
two years, though I had nearly as long in ' Patience ' and
' The Mikado.' Long runs are terribly trying to me ; the
process never becomes mechanical, and it tangles my nerves.

" I have always got on well with Gilbert. He was most
kind, though a bit of a martinet, as everyone knows. Some-
times he took you up short when you least expected it.
You'd say, for example, ' It's a fine day,' and he'd regard
that as a personal affront if he was dissatisfied with the
weather. Then he'd allow no tampering with his work.
With Sullivan it was different. If a bit of music didn't fit
well into my dialogue, I could go to Sullivan and ask him
to change it. But if I asked Gilbert to transpose a line, he
would look at me and say, ' I suppose you think you could
write the piece better than I ? ' which I couldn't, nor any-
one else either."

Most people, I fancy, know the story of the man that
wrote to Gilbert that he did not like the title " Ruddygore."
The author might just as well, the critic thought, have
called it " Bloody gore."

STILL ON THE STAGE 303

Gilbert replied in a short note that was dangerously
polite : —

" DEAR SIR,

" If you reflect a little you will perceive that there
is a difference between ruddy and bloody. For example, if
I spoke of your ' ruddy cheek/ you would take it as a
compliment ; whereas if I referred to your ' bloody cheek/
you might possibly think me offensive/'

Grossmith intensely admired the " Bab Ballads " (which,
as Gilbert was in after life fond of recalling, were declined,
with thanks, by Punch). He knew them, he told me, by
heart, " backwards and forwards and upside-down/'
" There never was such a master of rhythm/' he declared,
" and of that wonderful humour that trips you up and
throws you over. Sullivan had some difficulty in setting
other people's songs, but with one of Gilbert's he went to
the piano and played the music right off, the rhythm was
so catching. Of course, you know that Gilbert himself has
not the slightest notion of music. He declares that he only
knows two airs ; one is ' God save the King/ and the
other isn't/' I had known that a good many masters of
rhyme and rhythm, including Scott and Macaulay, had no
ear for music, but this was the most astounding example
of all.

Personally, I am music deaf, yet one Christmas, early in
my reporter's days, I wrote the topical songs for the three
theatres, and in all three they were sung with considerable
success, though I myself could not tell if every line were
sung out of tune. My plan was very simple. I wholly dis-
regarded the music. I just took the words of a popular song
and wrote a topical version to the same metre.

A curious little incident occurred in connection with one
of those songs. It was sung by a charming little married
lady, the wife of the proprietor of the theatre. Off the stage
she was very quiet and shy. In the pantomime she was
" principal boy," a lively and fascinating " Prince Perfect,"
a clever actress, with a delightful voice. Indeed, I never
thought much of my own song until I heard her sing it.

304 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

One evening when I was alone in a box in the theatre
the door opened, and " Prince Perfect " stepped in, sat
down beside me and began to thank me for my song. Her
costume was becoming but by no means voluminous. In
her dress was she " Prince Perfect," the " principal boy " ;
in manner was she the gentle little lady I knew off the stage.
She might have been sitting in discreet morning costume
in her own drawing-room with her children round her, for
any consciousness she showed of her scanty attire. I was
embarrassed ; she was quite at her ease.

Amongst the actors who come regularly to Dublin, I con-
fess a special friendship and admiration for Martin Harvey.
He brings the glamour of old romance on the stage. " Senti-
mental," I would call his acting, had not the word been
" soiled by all ignoble use." His appearance, his gestures,
every inflexion of his sympathetic voice, are replete with
sentiment, lofty or pathetic.

He was always a great favourite with the Dublin ladies,
who, without distinction of age, from sixteen to sixty, posi-
tively adored him. More than once I have seen him in my
drawing-room an unwilling Bunthorne amid a swarm of
love-sick worshippers, terribly embarrassed by the persistent
and universal idolatry.

On one occasion, I remember, I introduced him to a row
of youthful adorers, ranged together on a drawing-room
sofa. He simply bowed his acknowledgment and turned
away. I saw tears start into their beautiful eyes, and my
heart was moved.

" Harvey," I said reproachfully, " if I had a row of lovely
adorers, the very least I would do would be to shake hands
with them." The kindly actor instantly made the girls
happy by the touch of his hand.

On another occasion I introduced him to a very young
and pretty girl by a wrong name. Her name, let us say,
was Miss X. I introduced her as Miss Y.

" Oh, how could you ! " she wailed as he turned away.
" Now he will always think of me as Miss Y."

I instantly rectified the error.

" Mind, Harvey," I said when I had introduced him cor-

STILL ON THE STAGE 305

rectly, " you are always to think of this young lady as
Miss X."

The finest recitation I have ever heard was Harvey's
rendering of Tennyson's " Edward Grey." I had read the
lines often, thinking them rather trite and commonplace.
When Harvey recited them I realized for the first time the
infinite tenderness and passion of which they were capable.

Quite recently Mr. Martin Harvey gave me the surprise
of my life. I had heard great things of his performance in
" (Edipus Rex," outside Shakespeare assuredly the greatest
tragedy ever written. It was the only Greek play I had
ever read in the original, and reading it twenty lines at a
time with the aid of a dictionary and grammar I was hardly
in a position to appreciate its beauty. Since then, however,
I have read it many times in various translations, with ever-
growing admiration of the tremendous and overwhelming
power. The Unities, that always seemed to me artificial
fetters which hampered the genius of the dramatists of
France, here lend directness and simplicity to the awful
tragedy which grows like a cloud with little gleams of light
through the gloom till the whole sky is darkened and the
storm bursts.

In all humility I must confess that I did not think that
Mr. Martin Harvey was the actor for the part. In tender-
ness, pathos and romantic melodrama I knew him to be
supreme, but I did not credit him with the dignity and
power that (Edipus imperatively demanded.

The moment he appeared on the stage, stately and master-
ful in the midst of imminent calamity, a demi-god of old
Greek legends, by word and gesture dominating the panic-
stricken crowd, I realized my mistake, and my admiration
grew to an almost painful intensity during the progress of
the play. In a long experience I have seen nothing more
magnificent on the stage.

I am, as I have said, not musical, and only was once
brought into close contact with a great musician. I was
surprised to find the famous violinist, Kubelik, when I first
met him little more than a boy, though then in the plenitude
of his power and fame. Some little time before, he told me,

306 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

he had received twenty-two thousand dollars for four con-
certs in New York — over a thousand pounds a concert.

He had a very charming story to tell of Lord Dudley, who
was at the time Viceroy in Ireland, and I am inclined to
think the most popular Viceroy that ever held Court in
Dublin.

" I was coming from Marienbad," said Kubelik, " and,
stupid as I was, I forgot to have a sleeping-carriage for my
wife — you know, I am only just married. Your Viceroy,
Lord Dudley, heard of it, and he insisted on giving up his
own sleeping-car. ' I am an old traveller/ he said to me.
M can bear the hardship of the journey better than a young
bride/ "

Kubelik told me he was never fatigued by playing ; his
violins were friends of whose talk he never tired.

I wonder what fatalists would say of the grim little story
which I heard from Mr. Harry Nicholls about the actor
Terriss, who was murdered on his way to the theatre.

" I was playing," said Nicholls, " in ' Secret Service '
with poor Terriss at the Adelphi when he was murdered.
I saw him an instant after the blow was struck, and I had
to break the news to his son. The poor young fellow came
right through London with newsboys in every street yelling
the details of the murder. But he never noticed anything.
The first hint he got was from my lips. It was the most
terrible ordeal of my life. I trust in the time to come I
shall have nothing to face like that. Poor Terriss was the
kindest-hearted and most lovable man in the world. He
had a curious morbid feeling about death. He used to jest
on this subject with jests that seemed more than half
earnest. The night before the murder he laid himself out
stiff in the green-room, saying, ' This is how I shall look/
The next night I saw him lying there dead."

In the old days in Dublin during the Italian opera it was
the custom for the amateurs in the audience to entertain
the theatre with comic songs in the intervals between the
scenes, and very often when the curtain went up the pro-
fessionals on the stage had to wait until some popular
amateur among the audience had finished his song.

STILL ON THE STAGE 307

A couple of verses of one characteristic specimen of those
popular ditties still lingers in my memory, when so many
things better worth remembering have escaped : —

As I was sitting gay, careless and free,
On the very top bench of the top gallery,
I spied a fair lady, all beauteous was she,
Down in the dress circle a-smiling at me.

Oh, red was the hue of her opera cloak,

And redder the blush of her cheek as I spoke.

Her intellect bright, for she laughed at my wit

When I shouted, " Remove the white hat from the pit."

Occasionally I have been the witness of a humorous inter-
lude, wholly unrehearsed, on the Dublin stage. On one
occasion I was present, in my youth, at a somewhat primi-
tive performance of " Macbeth," most realistically produced,
at one of the minor theatres. The stage manager's notion of
realism was to suspend a blood-clotted dagger by an in-
visible thread from the ceiling, in order to give greater
reality to the horror of Macbeth. But at the last moment
the dagger could not be found, and a long oyster-knife was
substituted.

" Is this a dagger that I see before me ? " began the
Scottish chieftain, when a shrill voice from the gallery in-
terrupted, " D n well you know it is an oyster-knife ! "

And at that unfortunate interruption the tragic muse fled
from the theatre for the night.

On another occasion Mr. Rousbey was playing the part
of Cardinal Pole in " 'Twixt Axe and Crown " with singular
ability. At the rising of the curtain he was discovered
seated at a table in a meditative attitude. There was a
moment's dead silence in the theatre, then from the gallery
a shrill cock-crow was heard.

Rousbey leaped from his chair and advanced to the foot-
lights threateningly.

"If," he said, " the person who has been guilty of that
interruption ventures to repeat it I will have him removed
from the theatre, and will myself appear against him in
the police-court to-morrow." Then, without a pause, he
added, in a voice of solemn menace, " Though lightly wears
Elizabeth her head, I will contrive to bring it to the block."

3o8 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

The coincidence of the double threat was too much for
the audience, and a prolonged roar of laughter gave Cardinal
Pole further time for meditation.

Barry Sullivan was in his time the chief and special
favourite of a Dublin audience. No other impressed them
so thoroughly with the reality of his performance. On one
occasion he was playing Othello — I forget who was lago,
but he had a rough time of it — when at last, in a frenzy of
passion, the stalwart Moor seized his tempter by the throat
and shook him as a terrier does a rat, and an applauding
shout rang out from the gallery :

" That's right, Barry ! Strangle the devil, strangle him ! "

One other illustration how a quick wit saved the situa-
tion concludes my stage reminiscences. I do not claim to
have been an eye-witness. I tell the tale as it was told to
me by a colleague who was present, or said he was. The
alleged hero was no less a person than Henry Irving, long
before he became famous. He was playing the villain in a
sensational melodrama. In the last scene he attempts to
break out of prison, but just as he had filed the bars and
was preparing his leap for freedom the report of a gun is
heard outside, and he falls back lifeless into his cell.

On the night in question the gun refused to go off. There
was an anxious moment as the villain stood poised at the
window waiting vainly to be shot. Then suddenly, without
apparent cause, he fell backwards on the floor of his cell.

" Gracious Heaven," he cried aloud as he writhed in his
death agony, " I've swallowed the file ! "

CHAPTER XXXIV
ROME AND AMERICA

Leo XIII — An awe-inspiring Pope — An old cap for a new — The World's
Press Parliament — An invitation — An interview in mid-ocean — Rear-
Admiral Melville — Judgments and prophesies — The St. Louis Ex-
position.

A10NG the many remarkable men I have had the good
fortune to meet, I was most profoundly impressed
by Pope Leo XIII. In face and figure he was awe-inspiring
as a being from another world. He made the great mystery
of which he is the embodiment easy of belief ; he realized
the ideal of Christ's vicegerent on earth with supreme
dominion over the souls of men.

I had gone to Rome on a pilgrimage, personally conducted
by the late Prior Glynn, who had been for many years
resident in the Eternal City and knew its wonders as he
knew the palm of his hand. The pilgrims were fortunate
enough to have a special Mass said for them by his Holiness
in the Sistine Chapel, whose boy choir is the finest in the
world, and on whose ceiling is displayed the masterpiece of
Michael Angelo. But neither the choir nor the painting
could for a moment divert the eye or ear from the wonderful
old man who was the central figure of .the scene. He seemed
more spirit than human, and carried us with him into that
other world to which he belonged. His face and hands were
so thin as to be almost transparent, yet he did not give the
idea of emaciation. The body was forgotten, while the
soul shone out in eyes wonderfully large and luminous in
which his whole life was concentrated. It would hardly
have surprised us if, when he lifted his thin white hands at
the Consecration, he had risen into the air and vanished
from our eyes.

309

310 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

An audience followed the Mass, at which the good-
hearted Prior must have given me a character far beyond
my deserts, for I knew no word of Italian and was com-
pletely at his mercy. Certainly the Pope was most gracious.
His smile, the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand on
my head, filled me with a veneration that I cannot even
try to describe. Though not more used than most men
to the melting mood, I cried like a child during the
audience.

It is fair to confess that at least one of the pilgrims, an
American priest, was not so overpowered by the pontifical
presence. On the eve of the audience the Reverend Yankee
procured a white biretta, the kind worn by the Pope, and
carried it with him to the audience. Afterwards he was
allowed to substitute the new cap for the old which the
Pope had worn during Mass, an exchange almost as profit-
able as the change of new lamps for old in the story of
Aladdin. Half an hour later he was offered by a com-
patriot four hundred dollars for the Pope's biretta. A
few silver hairs found in the lining were valued at ten
dollars each.

Some years after my visit to Rome I had the following
invitation to represent Ireland at the World's Press Parlia-
ment at the St. Louis Exposition : —

" ST. Louis, U.S.A.,

" February iSth, 1904.

" Office of the President.

" Mr. McD. BODKIN,

" 52, Upper Mount, Dublin, Ireland.

" DEAR SIR,

" The Universal Exposition and Executive Com-
mittee of the World's Press Parliament have united in
extending a formal and cordial invitation to you to do them
the honour to participate, with other distinguished leaders
of the world's journalism, in the World's Press Parlia-
ment, to be held at the Universal Exposition, 16-21 May,
1904.

ROME AND AMERICA 311

" I trust that I may be favoured with an early reply, and
that you will be present at this greatest assemblage of the
world's journalists ever known.

" I am, dear Sir, with assurance of high consideration,
" Very truly yours,

" DAVID R. FRANCIS,
"President."

There is little to be told of a voyage across the Atlantic,
which has gradually come to mean no more than a week's
stay at a very first-class hotel. It was the unfortunate Oscar
Wilde, if I remember right, that was " disappointed " with
the Atlantic. I do not share his disappointment. I cannot
understand it. As our huge vessel forces her way through
the thundering waves, crushing them into clouds of white
foam at the bow, the sunshine striking through sets a score
of broken rainbow curves shining and dancing in the foam.
To right and left the waves go by in rushing hills and
valleys — deep blue in the sunshine, dark slate colour in the
shadow. Now and again the wind catches a huge breaker,
twists and shapes it to a pointed cone and drives a spout of
white foam like smoke into the air. For one moment the
light, striking through the peak of the cone, changes it to
a pellucid green, clear and bright as a flawless emerald.
The effect is indescribably beautiful.

Most amazing of all is the illusion as you step from one
of the hall doors on to the deck. The whole wide circle of
the ocean, right away to the distant horizon, seems to
slowly swell and sink with the swell of the vessel.

But I must not dwell on views which everyone who has
crossed the ocean in a big liner has had the same chance of
enjoying. I only allude to the journey because I met in
mid-ocean a very remarkable man with whom I had many
chats before we touched land on the other side — Rear-
Admiral Melville.

He was the man who was responsible for the fleet which
made such short work of the Spaniards. He was the Chief
of the American Navy Construction before the war, during
the war and after it.

312 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

The Rear- Admiral is not merely a remarkable, but a
remarkable-looking man — the two things do not always go
together. A massive man, broad-shouldered and big-limbed,
with a leonine head and a face strong, handsome, yet benevo-
lent : a great flowing white beard gives a patriarchal sug-
gestion to his appearance.

When I first saw him he was sitting in an easy wicker
chair in the corridor facing the broad stairs that led to the
dining-room. I plopped down in another beside him, and
opened the conversation with a remark about the weather,
which on sea is even a more fruitful and piquant topic than
on shore.

The steward had told me (for I sleep well) that it had blown
a pretty gale during the night.

But the Rear- Admiral made nothing of it.

' You can hardly call it a breeze," he said, " to a big
vessel like this ; the bigger a ship the better."

" In peace or in war ? "

" In peace and in war," retorted the Rear- Admiral
sturdily.

' Yet some people seem to think," I ventured to say,
" that in war, at least, the future is with the small, swift
vessel — the alert wasp with the torpedo for a sting, whose
sting is fatal to the biggest ship afloat."

The big man was roused at this heresy.

" Sheer nonsense ! " he replied. " The newspaper men
may say those things and the newspaper readers believe
them, but that doesn't make them true. You will get more
fight out of a hundred thousand dollars than out of ten
thousand, and a hundred times more out of a million. We
are building big vessels — eighteen-, nineteen-, twenty-
thousand tonners, and will keep on building them. England
is doing the same ; she shows her sense in that. The bigger
the vessel " (he repeated emphatically) " the better."

" The recent encounters between Russia and Japan hardly
prove that," I hinted submissively. The war between
Russia and Japan was in full swing at the time.

" They prove nothing at all," he answered, " except that
the Russians were careless or reckless, or both. Their navy

ROME AND AMERICA 313

was disabled in the first encounters. The Japs are prompt,
brave and ingenious, no doubt, but the result was less the
Japs' credit than the Russians' fault."

" But the torpedo-boats played a great part in those
engagements ? "

" Of course, of course. But a big vessel can deal with
torpedo-boats if she is properly handled."

" And the mines ? "

" Oh, the mines are a danger, no doubt, to little vessels
and big. The chief danger of a mine lies in the fact that
the vessel's magazines of explosives are kept as near the
bottom as possible to avoid the risk of explosion from shot,
shell or torpedo. But their position renders them all the
more easily exploded by a mine. But this danger, too, may
be evaded."

" Are the submarines really the vessel of the future ? "
I asked, an interesting question in view of recent discussion.

The Rear-Admiral grew splendidly indignant and de-
nounced the submarines vigorously. " They are worthless,
worse than worthless," he said ; " they can never be of
any use."

His opinion was identical with that of Mr. Wells, the
novelist and scientific prophet. The visionary theorist and
the practical expert were for once in absolute accord.

" What can the blind things do, anyway ? " he growled
thunderously, " as they go blundering about in the dark,
not seeing beyond their own noses ? I always did my best
to keep them out of the American Navy. A sneak vessel
should be quick, alert, keen-sighted, rapid in approach and
in flight. This is what the torpedo-boat is, and this is
exactly what the submarine isn't — blundering along in
the dark at the rate of eight knots an hour at the
outside."

" Have they not some contrivance to enable them to see
through the water ? "

" Oh, aye " (with fine contempt), " a lot of contrivances.
We tried them all in our navy, and flung them away.
England showed us the other day how a submarine should
be dealt with. It should be rammed. She didn't mean it

314 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

a bit. It was her own submarine she rammed, but the
lesson was good, all the same. The submarines have to
come to the surface, as whales have, to blow. They cannot
shoot then ; they cannot use their torpedo-tubes ; they can
do nothing, while the enemy goes straight in and rams them/'

He spoke with the warmth of active hostility. He
rammed them with emphasis, as if he had used another
word beginning with a big " D " instead.

I switched the talk on to another tack.

' You think the Japanese Navy will win ? "

" I think they have won. They have the Russian Navy
on the run. Indeed, I don't know what navy the Russians
have got to fight with."

" You don't think that ends the war ? "

" No, sir" (with great emphasis). " I think the Russians
will win in the end, and I hope it. They are, at least, as
good fighters as the Japs, and the numbers must tell.
Besides, they have better horses and are better horsemen.
They will come out on top."

" I thought American sympathy was with the Japs? "

" Don't believe it. The American papers may sympathize,
but not the thoughtful Americans. They see what it would
mean — the East against the West, invasion like the Huns in
the old days, only more terrible, more permanent.

" A triumph in Russia," he said, " would secure the Japs'
dominion in China. What would happen if China, with her
three or four hundred millions of men, should wake up as
Japan has wakened up ? I visited Japan about forty years
ago. They were savages then, sir. Most of them had no
clothes except a loin-cloth. They hadn't a vessel bigger
than the boats that are hanging at our davits. Their
weapons were two-handed swords. I bought a lot of them
when I visited the place as a young man. You could get a
good sword then for three or four dollars that would cost
a hundred now."

" A profitable investment, I should think ? "

" Oh, I gave them away to my friends. Swords are not
as plentiful now — they have other weapons. Japan went
to the front with a jump. Why cannot China do the same,

ROME AND AMERICA 315

with Japan to teach her and help her ? It would be a
dangerous outlook for the West. Let me say right here,
I don't want it."

My hearty concurrence in this view seemed to please him,
and we interchanged cards. My offer of a cigar he refused.
The Rear- Admiral had " no use for tobacco." Our talk
passed to less momentous topics. He told me that drunken-
ness had almost disappeared from the States, and even
moderate drinking was on the decline. He remembered the
time when drunkenness was the fashion down South. But
even down South there was little of it now.

I asked did they mean to keep on their President.
' Yes," he said. " Roosevelt is sure to win at the next
election, and a good thing too. But if the Democrats con-
centrate, as I think they will, on Chief Justice Parker —
right good man, Parker ! — he will have a pretty close run.
Your people generally go Democrat. I'm sure I don't know
why, except to help the under dog. That's Irish all the
time, and we like them for it."

The Rear-Admiral's panegyric of big ships is now in
question. Since then they have had a great boom, but
there has come a reaction, and the despised submarine, and
not the dreadnought, is now acclaimed the warship of the
future.

I don't mean to say much of the St. Louis Exposition,
the biggest the world has ever seen or is likely to see. It
was American, it was colossal, and everything connected
with it was colossal. The " Inside Inn," where I put up,
was in itself one of the chief wonders of the place. I do not
know the precise number of rooms in the hotel — I doubt if
they have been counted. My room was numbered 6402, and
that, so far as I could judge, was about midway in the
total. The space of the dining-rooms was to be measured
not by feet or yards, but by acres ; I had almost said miles.

Yet this huge structure, by many degrees the biggest
hotel the world has ever seen, was constructed in a single
year, and in a year more had wholly vanished. Vast as was
the accommodation, every day hundreds of visitors, if not
thousands, were sent away disappointed. The great piazza.

316 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

in front was daily thronged with ten thousand representa-
tives of the nationalities of the world.

I was delighted to find Ireland so popular in the States.
An American Pressman guesses my nationality and ques-
tions me with inoffensive frankness. Thereupon he produces
his card ; I respond with mine. He then formally intro-
duces me to his relatives and such friends as are procurable
at short notice. We all interchange cards. Each in turn
cordially shakes my hand and utters the formula, " I am
vurry proud to meet you, sir/' and so the ceremony con-
cludes. I brought about a thousand visiting cards home
with me from the States.

CHAPTER XXXV
THE WORLD'S PRESS PARLIAMENT

A brilliant reception — Secretary Hay — American oratory — Japan and
Russia — Princeton students at play — The college yell — " Tiger ! Tiger ! "
— A remarkable vice-president.

A .MOST immediately after my arrival at St. Louis I was
bidden to a grand reception of the foreign repre-
sentatives of the World's Press Parliament to meet
the Hon. John Hay, State Secretary for the Republic.
The great city of palaces was ablaze with millions of
electric lamps that emulated sunshine. The broad inter-
vening lagoons were sheets of silver. The cloudless moon
paled its ineffectual fire in the glare of manufactured
daylight.

The ceremonial, to my unaccustomed eyes, was very
strange. " The receiving line," as it was called, headed by
Secretary Hay, drew up in a small antechamber and stood
and waited patiently while two thousand five hundred
guests filed slowly past. Entering at one door, they were
introduced in rapid succession, shook hands with the whole
" receiving line," numbering about a dozen, and disappeared
into the great halls.

Tea was served by a swarm of Japanese girls in gorgeous
costumes, making bright splashes of colour in the crowd.
With each cup they presented a tiny nosegay of the tea
plant. A Russian prince, who was one of the vice-presidents
of the World's Press Parliament, was present at the function.
I wonder if he enjoyed his tea.

There and elsewhere at the Fair I was introduced to
several Japs with unpronounceable and unspellable names.
They were all the very embodiment of bland courtesy. The
impressions produced were so admirably described in the

3i8 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

St. Louis Daily Globe Democrat, which, by the way, is a
Republican organ, that I am irresistibly tempted to quote
a few lines : —

" There is something very striking and radical about the
Japanese grin. It is employed with such frequency and
such diffuseness. Is it propitiatory in its character, tem-
peramental, or does it arise from genuine amiability ? You
ask the man in charge of the exhibit a question, and he dis-
plays a toothsome smile. You speak to a workman finishing
a booth, and his face broadens like a Jack-o'-lantern.
Conversation is all carried on with the most open counte-
nance. Is it as superficial as the American society smile
which works by draw-strings ? The Japanese employ smiles
with the same lavishness they employ in their embroidery
and decorating their pottery. As a means towards an end
they are extraordinarily valuable, and their cheapness must
also appeal to the thrifty streak in the Japanese national
character/'

The World's Press Parliament held its first session in the
Great Festival Hall, a huge building with a dome like
St. Peter's, described as " the crowning glory of this miracu-
lous exposition." The hall was on this occasion for the
first time thrown open to the public. It was brighter than
day with thousands of electric lights. The Press repre-
sentatives of thirty-five different nations were assembled
on the platform. The body of the hall held four thousand
interested spectators of the proceedings. In the pit and
galleries were the editors and literary celebrities of every
State and great city in the vast Republic.

At the first meeting of the World's Press Parliament the
chief speaker was the then Secretary of State, the Hon.
John Hay. Very different is American oratory, of which
I then had my first taste, from the British, as exemplified
in the House of Commons. The Americans go in for
" eloquence," they are much more flowery and more fluent.
They run their sentences together in a way that must make
it difficult, if not impossible, for a shorthand writer to hang
on to them. Perhaps that is the reason that verbatim re-
porting is not in vogue in -the States.

THE WORLD'S PRESS PARLIAMENT 319

Hay's peroration was very powerful. " In the name of
the President," he said, " writer, soldier and statesman,
eminent in all three professions and in all equally an advo-
cate of justice, peace and goodwill, I bid you a cordial
welcome with the prayer that this meeting of the repre-
sentatives of the world's intelligence may be fruitful in
advantage to the Press of all nations and may bring us
somewhat nearer to the dawn of the day of peace on earth
and goodwill towards men. Let us remember that we are
met to celebrate the transfer of one nation to another with-
out the firing of one shot, without the shedding of one drop
of blood. If the Press of the world would adopt and persist
in the high resolve that war should be no more, the clangour
of arms would cease from the rising of the sun to its going
down, and we could fancy that at last our ears, no longer
stunned by the din of armies, might hear the morning
stars singing together, and all the sons of God shouting
for joy."

I had myself the honour to deliver the opening address
at the last session, on " The World's Press Parliament and
its Functions," and I have to make grateful acknowledg-
ment of the kindly way in which the address was received
by the Press of St. Louis. One extract will suffice from
the St. Louis Globe Democrat. It is interesting as a word-
picture of the Japanese representatives at our Parlia-
ment : —

" One of the speakers at the Press Parliament spoke with
feeling and emphasis against the evil of war in his address,
and, being an Irishman, it seems scarcely necessary to say
he spoke with eloquence. There is just a touch of the
brogue on his tongue, and as he thundered forth ' War-r is
murd-her,' it was interesting to glance at the faces of the
Japanese editors present. While they had sat imperturbable
through most of the address, and it is to be feared not en-
tirely fathoming the Irish jokes of the speaker which had
preceded his philippic against war, they were alert instantly
when a subject so near to their almost constant thought
was brought into the arena. One of them stroked and
pinched his cheek in manifest agitation ; another turned

320 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

much paler and whispered excitedly to his companion ;
while a third somewhat unexpectedly applauded the
sentiment loudly."

The most dramatic event of our last meeting was the
delivery in succession of two addresses by the representa-
tives of Japan and Russia. The speakers were eminently
typical of their respective races. The Japanese, Ino Herado,
seemed little more than a boy — short, slight, alert, intelli-
gent, with that strange Eastern face that looks as if all the
features had been flattened to the surface, and the curious
turned-up slits of eyes — black, gleaming, opaque, inscru-
table. He spoke of the difficulty of Press work in Japan,
where there are as many as forty thousand distinct Chinese
letters to be set up, and where the compositor, instead of
tapping his linotype, or even picking his type from a
case in front of him, has to walk round a big room in
search of the particular letter he requires ; and he grew
fervent in his anticipation of the advent of a more rational
system by the adoption of the Roman alphabet in their
literature.

The Japanese, take them one with another, spoke the
clearest and most idiomatic English of any of the foreign
representatives, and this speaker was the best of them all.
His voice, manner, action, gesture were a curious and ad-
mirable parody of European oratory, and forced one to
remember that up to this his civilization has been largely
imitative ; already Japan has almost completely learned
all that Europe has to teach, and thoroughly assimilated
that knowledge.

Japan will not stop there. There is an ingenuity — an
originality of purpose — in the nation that forces it to further
progress, and the startling question presents itself : " What
next ? "

The Russian representative, Lio Nobokoff, was as typical
as the Japanese of his own land — old, gaunt, rugged, with
long white hair combed back from his forehead. He com-
plained of the Press restrictions in Russia, for which he
declared the Czar was in no way responsible. It was
the lack of Free Press that hampered Russia in peace

THE WORLD'S PRESS PARLIAMENT 321

and in war. He invited the World's Press Parliament
to hold its next meeting in Moscow, where its presence
could not fail to hasten the liberation of the Russian
Press.

It is noteworthy that the Russian representative
warmly applauded the Japanese, and the Japanese the
Russian, in the delivery of their respective addresses. The
project of a permanent World's Press Parliament was
applauded by all. We had earnest invitations for our next
meeting, not merely to Moscow by the Russian, but to The
Hague by the Dutch, and to Athens by the Greek repre-
sentatives.

One curious and characteristic incident may round off
this brief account of the Exposition. At the close of a great
banquet to the foreign representatives of the World's Press
Parliament, Mr. Johns, the editor of the Post Dispatch,
carried me off near midnight to " finish the evening" with
" the boys " of the Princeton University, who this year
held their annual gathering from all parts of the States in
a great restaurant of the Exhibition under the " Alps," close
to the Irish section.

I suggested that it was too late, but he curtly overruled
the objection with the brief remark :

" You don't know our boys."

Sure enough, we found the festivities still in full swing.
I was introduced and had to make a speech, and in response
the full college yell was given by the company, closing with,
"Ireland! Ireland! Ireland!"

A college yell is, indeed, a strange and wonderful institu-
tion. Its familiar sound, I am told, at sport and festival,
makes the old man young again in America.

" Tiger ! Tiger ! " is an integral part of the Princeton
College yell, and the tiger is the badge of the college. " Will
you allow me," said one of the " boys " very gravely, after
I had shaken hands with the president, " to introduce you
to our vice-president ? "

He brought me to the foot of the long table where I had
noticed, with some curiosity, a big box with a grating in
front. It contained a huge sleek, live tiger. The great

322 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

monster seemed almost bashful as he rose and stretched his
elastic limbs lazily. I wonder what he thought of the
strange scene he had witnessed so quietly through that long
night ? Perhaps he had previously rather fancied himself
at yelling, and felt humiliated,

CHAPTER XXXVI

RIVAL ATTRACTIONS

Niagara — A contrast — The glories of the Falls — The woman who went
over — A farewell vision — An episode — A curious correspondence — A
remarkable girl — Strangers yet friends.

I AM quite conscious of the audacity of attempting to
describe Niagara. The thing has really been done so
well and so often that trite repetition seems inevitable. But
no two people see this most tremendous spectacle of physical
nature through the same pair of eyes. For each there is a
distinct vision and new delight, and if he can put even
some poor remnant of his bewildering, overpowering sensa-
tions into words his description must be, in some degree at
least, original.

After a visit to Niagara the imagination feels the strain
of its immensity, its grandeur, its overpowering force.
However high-flown the anticipation, the reality surpasses
it. The sublime picture possesses — I had almost said
oppresses — the imagination, and one is under physical com-
pulsion to write or talk about it.

I was fortunate in my visit, fortunate in the weather and
in the manner of my approach. Instead of taking, as I
should have done, the train directly from Chicago to the
Falls, I got out at Buffalo and had a twenty-mile ride in
an electric trolly-car to Niagara.

" Our indiscretions sometimes serve us well when our
deep schemes do fall." Midway between Buffalo and the
Falls we passed through the Indian-named hamlet of Tona-
wanda, the most silent, sleepy, sunshiny spot in the wide
world. It was the vivid description of Mary Wilkins'
charming stories suddenly realized to the senses. Keen as
was my eagerness to feast my eyes on the Falls, this wonder-
ful village tempted me from the car. The smooth, clean

323

324 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

roads and the pathways stretched long and straight through
the lush-green grass and through the rows of wooden houses,
prettily framed and brightly painted, with their infinite
variety of " stoop " verandah, porch and pillar.

Unfenced orchards were everywhere in the full glory of
their spring vesture, pink and white, radiant and fragrant.
The place was all silent and seemingly deserted as the ruins
of Babylon. There was no sound or motion but the flutter-
ing and song of the big American robin, a bird with the
plumage of our redbreast, the note of a blackbird, the shape
and more than the bulk of a thrush.

No better preparation was possible than quiet, sleepy
Tonawanda, calmly embosomed in apple blossoms as a
contrast to the stormy rush and roar of Niagara. As we
swept closer in the swift electric trolly-car a low, earth-
shaking sound, like the deep growl of distant thunder,
told me that the great wonder of the world was close at
hand.

I was in luck, too, in my guide — bright, alert and intelli-
gent— brimming over with information. Of Irish descent,
of course, I might have fancied him an Irish jarvey but for
the faint twang that had mastered the brogue and the quaint
shape of his American buggy, with an awning stretched taut
to ward off the rays of the sun that blazed from a cloudless
sky.

I set out to describe the Falls. Now that I have come
quite close to the moment when that tremendous spectacle
first burst on my sight I realize how impossible is the task.
Impossible to describe as it is to forget, the first sight of
Niagara is an epoch in one's existence. From the bridge
to Goat Island, which cuts the river in two, I had my
first sight of the Rapids, an ever angry sea, with a heave
of green wave and a splash of white foam rushing to
the Falls at the speed of an express train, dazzling and
bewildering in their impetuous fury. Many great writers
have left it on record that the Rapids were to them more
wonderful and more awe-inspiring than the cataracts, and
a great painter has chosen the Rapids, not the Falls, as
the theme of his historic picture. For myself, I confess

RIVAL ATTRACTIONS 325

that, superb as are the Rapids, I can find little meaning in
such judgment.

It was an awful moment, to be remembered for a lifetime,
when I first caught a full view of the stupendous glory of
the Falls. My driver and guide pointed to a bridle-path
that ran out zigzag from the road, and on this I walked
alone to an angle guarded by a stout iron railing. On either
side the two great cataracts thundered past. A chill spasm
of horror shot down my spine. I could scarcely breathe as
I gazed on this spectacle, too vast and awful as it seemed
to be compassed by human sight or thought. I had read
many descriptions, I had seen many pictures — who has not ?
— of Niagara ; but the reality transcended the wildest
dreams of my imagination.

It was wholly different from anything I had conceived ;
with all its colossal bulk and power there is a majestic
dignity wonderfully impressive in this great rush of water,
in striking contrast with the petulance of lesser waterfalls.
The wide, deep river, perpetually fed by five great lakes,
does not dash nor leap nor tumble from the cliffs. The
waters roll over the edge with an even and stately motion.
Viewed in profile, as I first viewed them, one has the vision
of a colossal cylinder in endless revolution. In the American
Fall the cylinder is pure white, with a greenish shadow where
it touches the cliff. On the Canadian side, where the water
is far deeper, the revolving cone is of a translucent green,
like the sea in bright sunshine, flecked here and there with
streaks of foam, but soft and white as carded wool when it
thunders into the gulf a hundred and fifty feet below.

The white clouds rise up three hundred feet from that
foaming gulf in strange and fantastic shapes, touched here
and there with broken curves of brilliant rainbows.

Fifty yards from the foot of the Falls the water is calm
as a fish-pond. Later on in the day I sailed in almost under
the cataract in " The Maid of the Mist/' the little steamboat
that navigates the gulf. The volume of water, from the
impact of its tremendous weight and velocity, buries itself
far below the surface, flowing with a rapid undercurrent,
and rising nearly a quarter of a mile away, rushes down a

326 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

narrow channel at a speed of thirty miles an hour. In those
narrow Rapids the ill-fated Captain Webb was a victim to
his own daring.

There are a thousand thrilling stories told about the Falls.
Here a man leaped from the light suspension bridge, two
hundred feet high, the biggest single arch in the world, into
the gulf ; there the famous Blondin crossed from cliff to
cliff on a wire rope. I was pointed out a rock close to the
cliff's edge where a sailor named Alvory, wrecked in the
Rapids, had clung for four-and-twenty hours to a rock while
the people on shore made vain efforts at rescue with boat and
raft, and saw him at last whirled like a straw over the edge
into the abyss. I was told the story of the silly Englishman,
" the Hermit of Niagara," who lived for six months alone
on one of the lesser islands in the Rapids, and spent hours
daily hanging by his hands from the bridge that spanned
the fiercest current, dangling over the death that waited for
him in the wild water below, and ultimately caught him.

Vague traditions of Red Indian days still hover over the
place. They tell that in those dim, distant times, the
Indians, to appease the powerful god of Niagara, yearly
sent the fairest maiden of the tribe over the Falls in a canoe
to an inevitable death. How strangely this tradition re-
sembles the maiden and dragon legends of the old Greeks !
but here was a monster that no Theseus could destroy.
Dogs have gone over the Horseshoe Fall and survived. The
guide-books, however, unanimously declare that no human
being ever outlived that awful experience.

But the guide-books are wrong. The feat was attempted
and achieved by a woman of forty, who came down the
Rapids cased in a stout oak case, and was picked up in the
gulf under the railway bridge none the worse for her unique
and terrible experience. I met the lady herself in a shop
and bought her photo. Her comment on the exploit was
laconic. " I'm glad I did it," she said ; " but I don't want
to do it again."

A most touching story is told of a young father crossing
the bridge from Goat Island, where the Rapid runs fiercest
above the Fall. The father playfully lifted the little girl

RIVAL ATTRACTIONS 327

over the railing that fences the rush of boiling water. With
a sudden spring she broke from his arms into the awful
current. He cried out, and leaped the protecting rail in
mad pursuit. In a flash, too swift for eye to follow, they
were down the Rapids and over the edge, while the young
wife and mother, widowed and childless in that instant, lay
fainting on the bridge.

It is hard to believe it — Niagara once ran dry. Fed, as
it is, by five great lakes of an average depth of a thousand
feet, dry weather or wet makes no appreciable difference in
the vast volume of water that passes over. But once
Niagara ran dry. By an unprecedented combination of
contending winds the opening from Lake Erie was com-
pletely blocked with ice. In a few hours the river emptied
its unrecruited waters over the Falls, and for a day there
was no Niagara. I met an old man, one of many who, on
that memorable day — 19 March, 1848 — crossed the line of
the Falls dry-foot. The American Falls, he told me, were
absolutely dry. On the Canadian side there was, here and
there, a slight trickle which silently vanished in white foam
as it fell. Next day the ice-barrier burst, and the rush and
thunder of the Falls was renewed.

It is a thrilling experience to pass right under the Falls ;
from the " Cave of the Winds " I had a glance through
the mist of the great arch of gleaming green water that
sweeps by overhead. Niagara as I last saw it is still
vivid in my memory. I stood midway between the two
Falls. The sun shone brightly on the dazzling foam. Faint,
and wavering at first, a great rainbow arch slowly formed
itself, one foot in Canadian waters, one in American. It
rose majestically above the tumult, a clear, high arch of
variegated light, framing the most tremendous spectacle in
the great picture gallery of Nature. When I had looked
my fill I closed my eyes, as I was being driven to the train,
that this might be my last remembrance of Niagara.

I had two main objects in my visit to America ; one was
to see Niagara, the other requires a slight digression to
explain.

It happened that, twenty years before, a little niece of

328 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

my wife obtained a bronze medal and the glory of print
for a paragraph story about a dead bird, which appeared
in the Children's Page of " Little Folks." A fortnight later
she got the following letter from Vermont : —

" MY DEAR MADGE,

" I saw your name in ' Little Folks/ and I thought
it might do no harm to write to you, as it may be amusing
to both of us if you will correspond with me. I am ... a
little American girl, fourteen years old. I have two sisters.
One is Anne, she is sixteen years old ; Amy is nine years
old ; they are just as nice as they can be. Anne is going
to Florida this winter, and I don't know what I shall do
without her. I have no brothers, and I am glad, for I don't
like boys a bit — I think they are bothersome things.

" Have you very deep snow in Ireland ? We have had
snow over a foot deep this winter. But it has thawed so
that it is not so deep now. Sometimes it is three or four
feet deep here. Do you take sleigh rides in Ireland ? We
have such fun sleigh-riding in winter. Do you go to school ?
Amy goes to school, but Anne and I have a governess. We
have a little black-and-tan dog named Billy. Amy har-
nesses him to a small cart, and he draws it. We have three
canaries. We call them the Captain, the Duchess and
Prince Giglio. We have also a large tortoise-shell cat.
When the river was low he used to go down on the stones
and catch fish. He used to bring them to the house alive
in his mouth, and we put them into the fountain with the
goldfish. They are alive yet.

" In summer we have a saddle-horse, and have splendid
times riding on horseback. Do you sing ? I took several
lessons and enjoy them very much. I have been taking
them since last June. Anne can play nicely on the piano.
Do you take music lessons ? Have you ever seen Queen
Victoria or the Prince of Wales ? I threw a bouquet to
President Hayes once. There is a village near here where
Garfield used to teach. We have driven through the village
several times, but we cannot decide at which school it was.
Please write soon.

RIVAL ATTRACTIONS 329

No answer was sent ; it was thought to be a hoax, and
the incident slipped from the child's memory. By mere
chance I heard of it. I was charmed at the letter and un-
affected frankness of the child, and answered at length,
begging that I might be accepted as a correspondent in
default of a better. In a fortnight's time I had a long
and delightful reply. I will only quote the last few
lines : —

" Last year Anne and I published a little magazine ; I
will send you some copies of it. We published it for a year
and then gave it up, as it was hard work and did not pay

very well. I hope I shall hear from before long. I

must end my letter now. Please write again soon.

" Yours truly, .

" P.S. — I haven't a shorter name than Irene ; if I had,
you might call me by it."

Naturally, I fancied the magazine was a few pages of MS.
got together for her family and friends. Great was my
surprise when, a few days later, I received twelve numbers
of " Our Magazine," neatly printed on good paper and well
brought out, with the name of the editress, my little friend,
then thirteen years of age, on the cover. It was a charming
child's magazine, with stories long and short, and sketches
and scraps, comic and sentimental. But the crowning sur-
prise were the poems of my thirteen-year-old friend. Let
me give a single example from a score. I much doubt if
it is the best : —

The tall trees said to the murmuring wind,

" Shake down our leaves of gold,

Down on the grass and the flowers below,

They shiver in the cold.

We trees are covered with thick rough bark,

We are tall and strong and old.

" The poor little flowers are tender and young,

Last year they came from seed.

When cold Winter comes with its ice and snow

Warm blankets they will need.

Oh, dear wind, shake down our yellow leaves,

Cover the poorest weed."

330 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

So gentle the wind on the branches brown
Did softly, softly blow, M

And the little leaves all yellow and red
Did rustling downwards go,
To cover warm from the frost and cold
The flowers that slept below.

The correspondence thus begun continued, while my child
friend, whom I had never seen, grew to a woman. A score,
at least, of long and confidential letters passed between
us every year, till we grew to be familiar friends.

We called each other by our Christian names, we chatted
of our families and friends, our pursuits and amusements.
We knew each other more intimately than neighbours that
meet every other day.

So it happened, as I more than once told her in my letters,
my two chief objects in visiting America were to meet Irene
and to see Niagara. When I wrote to her of my arrival, the
three sisters came up specially to meet me in New York,
and we dined together at one of the chief hotels.

At our first meeting Irene gave me her hand. '' That's
too cold," I said, " for such old friends as you and I," and
I kissed her. She was all, and even more than all, her
letters had promised, and our correspondence is more
cordial than ever since we met.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A DELIGHTFUL VISIT

Burke-Cockran at home — A " frame house " on Long Island — Sherman's
grandchildren — "The sea was boiling hot" — American women — Their
special charm — Why works of art are taxed — Mrs. Jack Gardiner of
Boston — Evasion of tariff — Statues of lead.

ON my return from the Exposition to the Manhattan
Hotel, in New York, I found a letter awaiting me
from Mr. Burke-Cockran, with an invitation to spend a few
days with him at his residence in Long Island.

During my entire trip, in every town I visited I had
heard the praises of Mr. Burke-Cockran sung, especially by
enthusiastic Democrats, as the most eloquent man in
America. There was no man in the States, not excepting
the President himself, whom I was more anxious to meet,
and it may be imagined with what pleasure I accepted the
kindly invitation, for which I was indebted to a letter of
introduction from Mr. John Dillon, whom Mr. Burke-
Cockran counts, as he subsequently told me, as one of his
closest and most valued friends.

Next morning the telephone bell in my bedroom in
Manhattan rang me out of bed, and in a moment I was
conversing with Mr. Burke-Cockran in his home in Long
Island, some fifteen or twenty miles away. From him I had
minute instructions when to start and where to go and what
train to catch. I am a child in those matters, always missing
my way, but the instructions were so clear and specific that
I found myself without trouble at the railway station, where
my host was himself waiting with a high dogcart to drive
me to his home by the sea.

Mr. Burke-Cockran is a remarkable man, even to the
uninformed eyes of a stranger. His appearance carries dis-
tinction apart from his reputation. In that massive head

332 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

and face there is vast intelligence and power, and in his
manner there is a geniality that tells of the Irish descent
of which he is so proud.

He was in especially good humour that day he met me
at the train, and told me the cause with almost boyish
eagerness. It seems that he had just won first prize for
his favourite horse at the local show and had the silver cup
with him in the trap. When we got to the house, his first
care was to arrange to have a glass case constructed for the
silver cup over the stall of the horse that won it. It was a
curious idea and very typical of the man.

Mr. Burke-Cockran's mansion stands in a wide and well-
wooded demesne, with its back to the sea. It is what is known
in America as a " frame house, " with wooden walls on a stone
foundation. An excellent whip and rider, he keeps, or used to
keep, a score or so of horses in the extensive stables situated
about a quarter of a mile from the house. On the verge of his
grounds there is a Catholic church, at which he is a constant
and devout attendant. At the time I paid my visit to Mr.
Burke-Cockran his other guests were the celebrated Mrs. Jack
Gardiner, of Boston, and a daughter of the famous General
Sherman, with her three children — a boy and two girls.

A very delightful house-party it was, full of consideration
and information for the stranger. Somehow it seemed to
bring me in touch with the stirring history of America to
hear that the little boy with whom I played on the grounds
(a bright and sturdy little fellow) had only a short while
ago unveiled at Washington a colossal statue of his grand-
father, who played so brilliant a part in the Civil War.
I had an opportunity, too, while staying with Mr. Burke-
Cockran of verifying my views about the women of America.
Long Island is, as everyone knows, a very fashionable
suburb of New York and dotted all over with mansions of
millionaires. Each evening he drove me out to a big dinner-
party, and everywhere a hospitable welcome awaited
himself and his guest. It was regarded to be something of
a distinction to be a guest of Mr. Burke-Cockran, and on
that account I was received with special cordiality.

As I have said, from the beginning of my trip I was im-

A DELIGHTFUL VISIT 333

pressed by the ease and grace and thorough naturalness that
distinguishes the American women. I never felt this more
strongly than at those stately dinner-tables to which I was
welcomed as the guest of the great Irish- American. Each
evening I went down to dinner with some charming American
lady to whom I had been introduced only a moment before,
and a moment later we were talking like old friends, with a
freedom and absence of constraint that could not be achieved
by less than a month's acquaintance in any other country
in the world.

I never saw those ladies before and, I fear, am not likely
to ever see them again — even their names have passed from
my memory — but I have to thank them for an experience
which will be a pleasant memory while I live. It has been
well said that America is the heaven of women : nowhere
else in the world have they so good a time, nowhere are
they so cherished, cared for, petted and not spoiled. But
they, in their turn, help to make it a heaven for the men.
The American girls are, for the most part, beautiful, but
their beauty only serves to heighten the ease of manner
and quick intelligence which makes them among the most
charming women in the world.

I look back with undiminished delight to my experience
of an American home. During my stay with Mr. Burke-
Cockran, the youngsters, with whom their host was always
ready for a romp, eased my loneliness for my own youngsters,
abandoned at the other side of the Atlantic. They were
fair specimens of the American child, and the American
child is peculiarly charming.

I remember well one very pleasant day spent in their
company when the thermometer was over a hundred degrees
in the shade and the sun's rays burned where they touched.
We four made our way together down through the woods
at the back of the house to the sea. I wonder is it right to
mention here that the woods and shrubberies of Long Island
are infested by a kind of vegetable reptile whose bite is
poisonous ? It is known as poison ivy ; it does not sting
like the nettle when touched, but it subsequently raises
blisters which are very hard to heal.

334 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

The boy had been bitten on the bare legs by the poison
ivy, and though the bite was more than a fortnight old the
blisters were still there. I was about to catch the vegetable
serpent in my hand when he warned me. He broke into
the shrubbery right and left, beating down the enemy
mercilessly with a stick ; but the girls and myself kept
cautiously along the path in Indian file, turning neither to
the right nor to the left until we reached the sea.

Mr. Burke-Cockran keeps a handsome boathouse on the
shore provided with all bathing appliances. In a few
minutes we were ready for the water. But as I was going
to step down the spring-board from the shelter of the cabin
the skipper warned me back. He took up a full bucket of
water from the sea and splashed it upon the spring-board,
which steamed like hot iron at the contact.

" If you had walked there, sir, before I cooled it," he
said, " you would not have had a half -inch of whole skin
on the soles of your feet."

The recollection of that swim makes me understand what
sea bathing is to the people of America when the sun is doing
its best. The water was almost as warm as the air — not
quite, just a pleasant coolness. The youngsters swam like
ducks, just as they walked or ran, with no thought of
fatigue. It was a good hour or more before we coaxed our-
selves from the cool element back to the almost unendurable
heat on land.

Protection sometimes operates curiously in America.
Mrs. Jack Gardiner is an old lady who preserves all the
brilliancy and vivacity of youth — a friend of Browning
during his life ; a friend of the great painter Sargent. A
discriminating and munificent lover and patron of Literature
and Art, she has built a palace at Boston and filled it with
art treasures that almost rival, so I am told, the great
Wallace Collection in London. Rumour has it that she
purposes leaving this priceless palace to her native town.
But meanwhile the indiscriminating laws of her native land
have mulcted her of something like a quarter of a million
dollars duty on the importation of those art treasures. It
certainly seems a strange anomaly. Other countries regard

A DELIGHTFUL VISIT 335

great works of art, even in private ownership, as a national
possession, and sometimes, as in Italy, absolutely forbid
their exportation. America, that should be so keen to
acquire through its citizens possession of Old World art
treasures, has the folly to put a penalty rather than a bonus
on their importation.

Mr. Bryce, who was editor and proprietor of the North
American when it was one of the most famous reviews in
the world, contributed to by Mr. Blaine and Mr. Gladstone,
gave me at his own dinner-table what may be taken as an
explanation, at least, if not a justification, of this strange
anomaly.

It seems that at first works of art were duty free. But
it chanced that at one period that there was a great and
sudden demand in the United States for lead, which was the
subject of a particularly heavy tariff. A Yankee genius
conceived the happy thought of running foreign lead into
moulds of " Venus/' " Juno " and " Jupiter," and ship-
ping it wholesale to the United States as " works of art/'
It was after that the tariff on works of art was established,
of which Mrs. Gardiner has been the chief victim.

CHAPTER XXXVIII
ROOSEVELT AT HOME

Washington — A pleasant city — No slums — No factories — The Capitol —
Legislature buildings — The White House — An accessible sovereign —
Roosevelt's views on Ireland — Irish blood in his veins — His qualifica-
tion for the position — " Lecky first made me a Home Ruler."

I ENDED my visit to America in Washington, keeping the
best for the last. It is emphatically the most beautiful
city I saw in the States. There are many who pronounce it
the most beautiful in the world. It is a city of stately
public buildings, of innumerable monuments and statues,
of broad, smooth ways, of verdure and of sunshine. I
never saw a city so full of trees. They are everywhere,
lining every road or scattered in clusters through the
innumerable parks and pleasure-grounds. Washington is
a capital without being a chief town. There are scores of
cities in the States that exceed its modest population of
three hundred thousand. New York has at least twelve
times its population. There are no factories in Washington,
and consequently there is pure air. There are no slums.
It is a political and social centre merely, and admirably
fulfils its functions. I am not going to attempt a guide-
book description of the American capital, but I may briefly
note a few of its wonders. The Marble Library is one of the
most spacious and richly decorated buildings in the world.
There are very nearly a hundred miles of bookshelves in
the library, with full space for four million five hundred
thousand books. At present there are something over one
million volumes catalogued and arranged. Yet so perfect
are the arrangements of endless cables and book carriers
that any book can be whisked in a few seconds from the
remotest shelf in the vast building into the hands of the
expectant reader. Amongst the boasts of the library is a

336

ROOSEVELT AT HOME 337

spacious reading-room for the blind, with a huge collection
of books printed with raised type.

The Capitol calls for praise that I have no space to
bestow. It is the greatest building in the New World. It
represents the most successful effort of the men of modern
times to match the spacious days of the Old World. The
painting and sculpture with which its great halls and vast
domes are decorated are the finest and the best of which
America can boast. Within its ample confines there is
abundant space for the Supreme Court, the Senate Hall
and the Hall of Representatives. This latter building
excited my special interest. It is, so far as I could judge,
considerably larger than the House of Commons, though
the number to be accommodated is less than half. But
then the Hall of Representatives affords a comfortable seat
and desk for each Member. The seat is selected by lot at
the opening of the session and is retained till the close of
two years' term. The galleries for visitors run right round
the Chamber, which is circular in form. The reporters are,
as in the House of Commons, at the back of the Speaker's
chair. There is no gallery specially reserved for ladies, but
to the public gallery, to which they are admitted, there is
no grating.

The size of the American Chamber of Representatives is
not, however, an unmitigated advantage. Mr. Burke-
Cockran assures me it is about the worst hall in America
for speaking and hearing. The strongest and clearest voice
is there dissipated in echoes. If the hall is hard to fill, he
adds, the audience is hard to hold. No position, no reputa-
tion, suffices. Unless the orator has something to say and
knows how to say it, in five minutes the buzz of conversation
breaks in upon his speech. The Congressmen have not yet
acquired the House of Commons' trick of deserting the
House in a body when a bore gets on his legs.

From other sources I learn that none of the difficulties he
describes are ever personally experienced by Mr. Burke-
Cockran. There is no Me'mber of the Congress who can hold
the House better. Prominent men of both parties assured
me at St. Louis, Chicago, Boston and New York that he

338 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

is, beyond all doubt or question, the greatest orator in
America, and many added that if he were a native-born
American he would probably be the Democrat nomination
for the Presidency.

I am afraid I have wandered from Washington. Let me
come back to the White House and the President. I was,
at first sight, not a little amazed at the simplicity of the
residence of the President. A plain white building two
stories high, exclusive of attic and basement, it is no bigger
than an ordinary country seat of an Irish landlord. Its
severe simplicity is relieved only by a portico with tall Ionic
pillars. Yet this modest residence is the sole palace of the
most powerful ruler in the world. The building greeted me
from the first with a vague suggestion of familiarity. After-
wards I learned from the guide-book that the architect,
" John Hoban, drew his plans closely from those of the seat
of the Dukes of Leinster, near Dublin." The whole building
is pure white, but it is the white of paint, not of marble.
The house is built of Virginian freestone. " In 1814," we
read, " in John Quincy Adams' term of office, the house
was fired by the marauding British troops, and only the
walls left standing. At the restoration the stone was
painted white to obliterate the traces of fire." It is as the
" White House " that the home of one of the world's
greatest sovereigns, and the seat of his government, is
known through the length and breadth of the globe.

At one end of the White House is a small one-storey
building to which I was directed as " the President's
office." A plump, bald-headed negro took my card to the
President's secretary, Mr. Barnes, to whom I presented
my letter of introduction from Mr. Justin McCarthy to the
President. Then, in five minutes, it was arranged that I
should have an interview with the President at half-past
eleven next morning. I walked out into the green and
sunshiny park, bewildered with the simplicity and prompti-
tude of the performance. No fuss, no ceremony, no barriers,
no lords-in-waiting ; just send in a card and arrange an
interview, as a matter of course, with the ruler of one of
the greatest empires in the world.

ROOSEVELT AT HOME 339

Needless to say, I was punctual next morning ; but I was
not three minutes waiting when the President, plainly
dressed in light grey tweed, stepped briskly into the
plainly furnished room and accorded me a most cordial
greeting.

President Roosevelt looked very young for his age ; face
and figure were wonderfully alive and alert ; there was not
a touch of grey in his thick brown hair ; his eyes and smile
had the vivacity of youth ; one would have guessed his age
at thirty-five — forty at the outside.

After a hearty greeting he plunged at once into familiar
talk about Ireland and her prospects. How was the new
Land Act working ? What would be the position of parties
and what the position of Ireland after the next election ?
I told him that we believed in Ireland that the Coercion
policy was completely exploded and that the Unionists were
hopelessly divided, and that it was probable that the Irish
party would hold the balance of power at the next election
and could again press Home Rule to the front.

" I do not understand why pressure is needed/' said the
President. " The English should grant it for their own
sake if not for yours. It is for her sake as well as yours that
we in America desire it. We have many happy examples
before our eyes in our own federal government. I have been
reading lately/' he added, " Morley's ' Life of Gladstone/ a
wonderful and fascinating book. Gladstone's arguments
in favour of Home Rule are, to my mind, convincing, but,
apart from argument, his personal authority should count
for much with the English people."

I mentioned that Dr. Emmet, with whom I had dined in
New York, had allowed me to use his name as an intro-
duction.

" You could use none of more influence with me," said
the President. " Why," he added, smiling, " it was
Dr. Emmet who, as our family physician, brought me into
the world. I have a sincere regard for Dr. Emmet and his
family. The Emmets have grown to be a great New York
family. The name is as highly respected in New York as
in Ireland. At the same time, let me say you needed no

340 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

other introduction to me than Justin McCarthy. There is
no Irishman better known or better liked as a man and a
writer on this side of the Atlantic."

I rose to take my leave, but the President told me to be
seated.

" I am ashamed," I said, " to trespass on such valuable
time. I have always thought you must be the busiest man
in the world, except the Pope."

" I rather think I am," he said laughingly, " except the
Pope. I think you were right in excepting the Pope ; but
I would not except any other man on earth, not even the
Kaiser. All the same," he added kindly, " I can spare a
few minutes for a visitor from Ireland. I am deeply inter-
ested," he went on, " in the Gaelic revival. Lady Gregory's
translations of the old Irish legends have afforded me
extreme pleasure. I have also read with the greatest
interest the works of Emily Lawless. There is one of her
poems — I forget the name, but you will find it near the end
of the volume — which might have been written by Parnell
or Davitt, if to their other great gifts the poetical faculty
had been added. By the way, I trust Mr. Davitt is well.
I have a warm personal regard for Mr. Davitt, and indeed
for all the Irish leaders. You must know I have Irish blood
in my veins."

" We are very proud," I said, " of that fact in Ireland."

" Oh, I belong to many nationalities," said the President.
" I have that one qualification to be President of the United
States, which is a country of many nationalities. I am
partly Irish, partly Dutch, partly English."

" Less English than Irish, I trust, Mr. President," I
ventured to interpolate.

The President grew suddenly grave. " Every nation on
earth," he said solemnly, " shall have fair play from the
Government of the United States and its President. At the
same time, I can thoroughly understand the feeling of Irish-
men. No one can read history and fail to appreciate it.
It was the history of Mr. Lecky that first made me a Home
Ruler. I cannot understand how the author of that descrip-
tion of the Union could be himself a Unionist. I cannot

ROOSEVELT AT HOME 341

understand how any man could read that history, far less
write it, without becoming a Home Ruler. It seems to me
that expediency, as well as justice, are so strongly in favour
of the reform that Home Rule cannot be long denied to
Ireland."

CHAPTER XXXIX

APPOINTED A JUDGE

Lord O'Brien of Kilfenora, Chief Justice of Ireland — " Mrs. Maloney to
you, Pether " — Jury packing, challenging the array — The MacDermot's
white waistcoat — The situation saved by a pin — Contempt of court —
A threat and a retort — Appointed as County Court Judge — Appoint-
ment challenged — An absurd affidavit — A fiasco.

A VERY interesting personage at the Bar and on the
Bench was the ex-Chief Justice of Ireland, Lord O'Brien
of Kilfenora. Like Sir Edward Carson, he took an active
part in prosecutions under the coercion regime of Mr,
Balfour, and thereby earned a temporary unpopularity in
Ireland. But that unpopularity had completely evaporated
long before the retirement of the Lord Chief Justice. It
was impossible to maintain a permanent quarrel with a man
of such genial good-humour. It was eminently characteristic
of the man that he loved to tell the following story of his
own brief unpopularity.

He was engaged for the defence in an action brought by
a Mrs. Bridget Maloney, and it became his duty to cross-
examine the plaintiff.

" Come now, Bridget," he began, " kindly answer me a
few questions."

The plaintiff stiffened in the box and turned on him a
look of withering scorn. " Bridget, indade ! " she exclaimed.
" Mrs. Maloney, if you plase, to you, Pether."

While writing for the Freeman I continued to practise
at the Bar, and was engaged in quite a number of important
cases. It so chanced that during my practice from first to
last I was brought into frequent collision with Lord Chief
Justice O'Brien, both as counsel and judge.

The first time we met in court, many years ago, was when
I defended a number of tenants of the Marquis of Clan-

342

Photo by Chancellor and Son, Dublin.

LORD O'BRIEN OF KILFENORA

Lately retired Lord Chief Justice of Ireland

P- 342

APPOINTED A JUDGE 343

ricarde, whom the Chief Justice (then Serjeant O'Brien)
prosecuted before Chief Baron Pallas and a special jury at
the Winter Assizes in Sligo. On behalf of the prisoners I
" challenged the array," and the jury panel was quashed
by the Chief Baron on the ground of gross irregularities. It
was on that occasion Lord O'Brien obtained the soubriquet
by which he is more generally known in Ireland than by his
title of nobility.

We had a second encounter at the same assizes, at the
close of the case for the prosecution of Mr. Jasper Tully
under the Whiteboys Act for publishing in his newspaper
reports of the meetings of the United Irish League. At the
close of the prosecution, having asked Serjeant O'Brien if
he had anything more to add, and receiving a curt negative
in reply, I demanded a direction of acquittal on the ground
that no case had been made against my client.

Serjeant O'Brien was at first indignant and contemptuous,
but when the Chief Baron intimated that as the case stood
I was entitled to a direction, he applied for an adjournment
to mend his hand.

Against this I strongly protested, and declared somewhat
flippantly, as I now consider, that it was no part of my
duty to direct proofs for the prosecution. The adjourn-
ment was, however, granted, but the jury disagreed and
the prisoner was discharged.

But it was not in the courts alone that the Lord Chief
Justice and myself came in conflict. For one reason or
another he was the subject of an occasional comment in
the Freeman's Journal. Perhaps the most amusing in-
cident in his career was his judicial objection to the
white waistcoat of that eminent Queen's Counsel, The
MacDermot.

By common repute The MacDermot, " Prince of Coo-
lavin," by letters patent, " The wily Mac " in the
affectionate familiarity of his colleagues on circuit, was the
ablest and most astute lawyer at the Irish Bar. I have
introduced him as Mr. Yorke into a novel of mine, " A
Modern Miracle," as a counsel who contrived to convey to
a jury that the worst case in which he appeared was a good

344 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

one spoiled by the advocate, and so secured their sympathy
and verdict for his client. He was Solicitor-General and
Attorney-General in Gladstone's last government, and it
was by mere bad luck that he never reached the Bench, for
which he was eminently qualified.

The MacDermot was many years senior at the Bar to
the Lord Chief Justice, and before his promotion had con-
stantly led him in court. But in a little incident that
occurred in the Court of King's Bench, Lord O'Brien's fine
sense of decorum overruled those considerations. Next
day in the Freeman's Journal appeared a leading article on
" MacDermot's White Waistcoat."

" There are many things eminent counsel may do on his
way from the Bar to the Bench that to the ordinary lay
mind seem somewhat questionable. He may turn his coat
with impunity and even with advantage. But he must
never wear a white waistcoat when appearing before a Lord
Chief Justice. This vital point of legal practice was yester-
day decided by Lord Chief Justice O'Brien, ex parte The
MacDermot, Q.C. We give the details of the important
case for the benefit of the public and the profession. The
MacDermot appeared in court as the leading counsel for
the defendant in the case of Menton v. Corporation of
Dublin, apparelled in the silk gown and starched band and
the funny curly-pated horsehair wig that custom ordains
for such occasions. So much is to be conceded in the
extenuation of his grave offence. For on his manly bosom
he wore ' the white waistcoat of a blameless life.' The
obnoxious garment caught the keen eye of the Lord Chief
Justice, whose sense of professional decorum is painfully
acute.

" ' I observe/ he said, ' that one of the Queen's Counsel
appears in a white waistcoat which is not a professional
costume.' Mark and admire the dignity of this, ' one of
the Queen's Counsel/ The Lord Chief Justice of Ireland
cannot condescend to discriminate between the Queen's
Counsel who have the honour to appear before him. Or
was it that his eye was so offended by the first glance at
the obnoxious garment that he could not look again in the

APPOINTED A JUDGE 345

same direction ? He identified the waistcoat, but not the
wearer. There is a member of the Bar in whose keeping
the honour of the Bar is safe, who is recognized among his
brethren as the highest type of manly independence. He
splendidly vindicated his reputation. ' My lord/ he said,
' a judge in England stated last week that he would not
hear any counsel that did not appear in Bar costume.' He
did not state the name of the case nor of the judge. He
felt he had done enough for honour by this public repudia-
tion of an offending brother and this public exhibition of
profound deference to the court.

" The Chief Justice of Ireland was not to be outdone by
any anonymous English judge.

' And I/ he said, ' won't hear any barrister who comes
into court wearing anything unprofessional.' Here was a
terrible situation. For a moment there was awestruck
silence in the court. Would the Lord Chief Justice order
The MacDermot's white waistcoat to be removed by the
usher of the court and burned by the common hangman ?
Those that knew the man, who knew the high ideals that
governed his professional career, felt him capable of that
splendid exercise of his authority. But Mr. O'Shaughnessy
saved the situation with a pin. The MacDermot pinned
his silk gown over the offending garment and the case
proceeded.

"There are many who will gravely doubt whether the
Lord Chief Justice was justified in this toleration. It was
paltering with the evil thing. He had, so to speak, judicial
knowledge that the white waistcoat was there. It is a nice
question if the dignity of the court was sufficiently main-
tained by a pin. The case suggests appalling possibilities.
The Lord Chief Justice did not restrict his veto to white
waistcoats. He would refuse, he said, to hear any counsel
who came into court wearing anything unprofessional. He
was plainly alluding to some other garment. Suppose an
eminent Queen's Counsel came into court wearing an un-
professional pair of trousers ? In this case decorum could
not be adequately secured by a pin. Would the eminent
Queen's Counsel have to be wholly removed, or would it

346 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

suffice to remove — but the subject is too painful to pursue
further."

Rightly or wrongly, I got the credit of writing the article,
which I cannot flatter myself was calculated to improve my
relations with the Lord Chief Justice.

Our second last encounter was more dramatic. An
application was made against the editor of the Freeman's
Journal in a motion to attach and imprison him for con-
tempt of court by reason of a comment which had appeared
in his paper on the conduct of a trial at which Lord Chief
Justice O'Brien presided.

The Lord Chief Justice also presided at the hearing of the
contempt of court application, and as leading counsel for
the Freeman's Journal editor I respectfully suggested that
his lordship should not hear the case in which his own
conduct was impugned. By way of reply he threatened to
have me removed from the court by the police. I challenged
his authority, and he thought better of the threat, and
thenceforward, though he persisted in presiding at the
trial, his manner to me personally was most courteous.
When I wandered a little from the subject into the general
question of jury-packing, his lordship asked me very
politely if I considered that was quite relevant to the
issue.

" Perhaps not strictly relevant," I replied, " to the main
issue of guilty or not guilty. But should by any chance the
court decide there has been a technical contempt of court,
your lordship must, I think, also decide that my clients
have rendered a great public service by denouncing the
system of jury-packing prevalent in this country, and that
consideration will surely determine the punishment."

Ultimately it was decided there was a technical contempt
of court, but no punishment was inflicted.

At the conclusion of a long judgment by the Lord Chief
Justice I humbly asked leave to say a word or two of
personal explanation. I knew that I could only speak by
his permission, and I knew that he would promptly shut me
up if he knew what I was going to say, so I spoke with
bated breath and whispering humbleness, leading everyone

APPOINTED A JUDGE 347

in the court, his lordship among the rest, into the belief that
I intended to apologize.

To understand what followed it is necessary to recall the
fact that very many years ago the late Judge Keogh had,
at the Cork Assizes, threatened Lord O'Brien, then a junior
barrister, that he would have him removed by the police if
he persisted in interrupting. Almost immediately after-
wards, however, Judge Keogh returned to court and made
an ample apology to Mr. O'Brien for having " used so
unworthy a threat/'

" My lords," I began submissively, " may I be allowed
by the favour of the court to make a personal explanation
in reference to some observations that have fallen from the
Lord Chief Justice ? In anything I said in the progress of
this case I was actuated by a desire to discharge my duty
to my clients, and I have, I believe, acted within my privilege
as counsel. The Lord Chief Justice threatened to have me
forcibly removed from court. The only precedent that
occurs to my recollection — I think it will also be within the
recollection of the Lord Chief Justice — is an occasion when
a member of the outer Bar, now a great judicial luminary,
was made, as I have been here, the object of a threat of per-
sonal violence. But in that case, my lords, the judge that
used the threat had the manliness and courtesy to apologize
to the counsel."

" This case is now concluded," said his lordship ; "we
will hear no more about it."

By a curious coincidence Lord O'Brien figured promi-
nently in a very remarkable incident that occurred just
after my appointment to the position of County Court
Judge.

While I was on my first sessions Serjeant, then Mr. A. M.,
Sullivan, instructed by a solicitor named Mr. E. J. O'Meehan,
applied, on behalf of Mr. Markham, a day labourer in Ennis,
County Clare, to have my appointment annulled. The
application was founded wholly on a very long, rambling
affidavit purporting to have been sworn by this illiterate
day labourer, setting forth in detail his reasons for suppos-
ing that before my appointment I had retired from the Bar.

348 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

He being admittedly unable to read or write, had his mark
affixed, instead of his signature, to the document.

It so chanced that the application was made in the court
over which Lord Justice O'Brien presided. On the strength
of Markham's affidavit he made a conditional order that
cause should be shown why my appointment should not be
annulled. When the case came again for hearing the
following affidavit, filed by the same illiterate labourer,
threw a curious light on the proceedings : —

" I was working," he swore, " on the Inch Bridge Road
a few miles from Ennis for my master, who is a road con-
tractor. I returned to my house at Old Mill Street between
six and six-thirty on that evening. A man named Joseph
M'Inerney came into my house and said, ' You have a
process got, haven't you, Stephen ? ' I said, ' To my know-
ledge, I have no process.' When I said this my wife got up
and said, ' You have.' Joseph M'Inerney said to me, ' Come
down to Mr. O'Meehan,' as he (Mr. M'Inerney) guessed that
Mr. O'Meehan had a couple of cases like it. I went down
with Joseph M'Inerney to a public-house kept by Miss Lally
in Jail Street.

" When I sat down inside he came back, and when
he returned he was accompanied by Mr. O'Meehan and
Mr. Miniken, who is a Commissioner for Oaths. When Mr.
O'Meehan came in he bid me the time of night and took the
copy process which my wife had given to me. He then read
a long scroll to me, and made some explanation about it.
Until my wife told us in the presence of Mr. M'Inerney that
a process had been served I knew nothing about the matter,
as I never had any dealings with Griffin, the plaintiff, and I
never knew that my wife had any dealings with him either.
I was very angry with Griffin, as he had processed me with-
out sending me any account, as I would have paid him by
instalments, even if I had to deprive myself of tobacco to
do so.

" When Mr. O'Meehan read the scroll he made some
explanation about it, but I thought it was about Griffin, the
plaintiff in the process, as he had never given me any notice
that I owed him any money before processing me, and

APPOINTED A JUDGE 349

I thought he should have come himself or sent a messenger
before processing me for such a trifling sum. I never knew
that the scroll read to me by Mr. O'Meehan, which I now
know was an affidavit, had anything to do with Mr. Bodkin.
I thought it had solely to do with Griffin, who had pro-
cessed me. After Mr. O'Meehan had read the scroll to me
I made an oath before the Commissioner, Mr. Miniken, and
put my mark to the scroll, which I now know was an
affidavit. After I had done this I had a pint of porter at
Miss Lally's, and he had a small drink also ; I don't know
what it was. I was surprised to hear a few days ago what
was being done about Mr. Bodkin, the judge, as I never
knew anything about Mr. Bodkin whatever, and I learn
that there are rumours that I am to get something out of
the case, which are wholly untrue. I can neither read nor
write, and if I got a hundred pounds I would not knowingly
have done what I am now told I have done.

" I say most positively that I never authorized Mr.
O'Meehan nor anyone else to take any proceedings with
reference to Mr. Bodkin, and I made an affidavit on the
second of January in entire ignorance of what the real
meaning was, as I understood it was made for the purpose
of defending the process issued against me by Griffin, as I
never knew that the debt was due or got any account, and
I say that the said affidavit must have been prepared before
I was consulted in any way about the matter, as Mr.
O'Meehan had it ready for swearing when he came to Miss
Lally's to me."

On the reading of this affidavit Mr. A. M. Sullivan
abruptly retired from the case, and the then Attorney-
General, Lord Chief Justice Cherry, argued that there had
been a gross abuse of the court. " A judge," he said,
" properly appointed by the Lord-Lieutenant, had been sus-
pended by his lordship on an affidavit of an illiterate
labourer, which was plainly absurd on the face of it, and
which was now sworn to be suborned. The Attorney-
General demanded that the solicitor, O'Meehan, should,
as an officer of the court, be called on for an explanation
on oath.

350 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

His lordship refused, on the ground that Mr. O'Meehan
had made no affidavit. A second application that Mr.
Markham, who had made two affidavits, should be examined
was refused on the ground that the case was at an end.

Some injudicious Unionist asked the Irish Chief Secretary
in the House of Commons if he could state what had induced
Markham to make the affidavit, and Mr. Birrell promptly
replied :

" A pint of porter."

The order having been duly discharged by the court that
made it, I settled down quietly to my duties as County Court
Judge of Clare. Some months later I met the Lord Chief
Justice at a social function, and he very kindly congratulated
me on my appointment.

CHAPTER XL
ON THE BENCH

Dressed in a little brief authority — A trying position — Put yourself in his
place — " Ordinary crime " extraordinary in Clare — Agrarian offences,
the cause and the remedy — A wave of temperance — Two converts —
" Always for life " — " My sowl's in your hands " — The Quilty heroes —
Knocking at the stage door — Beneficent legislation — Labourers' cot-
tages— Old Age Pensions — Demand for Home Rule undiminished —
The good time coming.

I WAS minded to bid the reader a cheerful good-bye as
I stepped up to the Bench, but it was suggested to me
that a few farewell words would not be out of place. Very
briefly I will touch upon my sensations and experiences as
a judge, and on the social and political changes I have seen
during the period covered by my judicial recollections. As
the ship that comes from the rough waters of the open sea
to the calm of the landlocked harbour, I passed from the
strain and stress of arduous work to the otium cum dignitate
of the Bench.

At first, indeed, my satisfaction was tempered by extreme
nervousness. It is a very panicky sensation to sit in solitary
state for the first time and lay down the law to an attentive
court.

The Irish County Court Judge, as ex-ofncio Chairman of
Quarter Sessions, enjoys (or endures) a criminal jurisdiction
that does not appertain to his brethren in England. Theo-
retically, the magistrates who sit with him have an equal
jurisdiction, but in practice they are accustomed to leave
the conduct of the case and the amount of sentence follow-
ing a conviction in the hands of the judge.

This sense of power is bewildering to the novice. There
is a man in the dock, a powerful young fellow, it may be,
who, man to man, could crumple me up with his right hand,

352 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

and there I sit on the Bench the master of his liberty. If I
say he is to go to prison he must go, and he must stay in
prison as long as I choose. For a judge who realizes what
imprisonment means it is a very worrying responsibility
this shutting a man out from all enjoyment, robbing him of
a month, a year, five years of a life none too long at the
best. The punishments I inflict are as light as the judicial
conscience will allow ; if I err, it is on the side of mercy.
Once I remember having sentenced a man to two months'
imprisonment. Then, for some reason I have forgotten, I
changed my mind and reduced it to a month, and as the
words were spoken I realized with a start how much it meant
to him. A few words of mine had saved him thirty long,
wearisome days in prison ; had added thirty days to his life.

Luckily for me, there is very little criminal business at
the Clare Quarter Sessions. What is commonly called
" ordinary crime " is extraordinary — is practically un-
known in the County of Clare. Nearly every offence there
has an agrarian flavour, but the worst form of agrarian
offence, the injury to dumb beasts, has almost entirely
disappeared. Even in the wildest times the amount and
character of those offences were greatly exaggerated.
" Cutting the tails off cattle " seems a blood-curdling
crime. It was not until I came as County Court Judge to
Clare that I discovered that " cutting the tails off cattle "
meant, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, cutting off
the long hair tassel that grows at the end of the tail.

At present almost the only forms of agrarian " outrage "
that come are the driving of cattle, the knocking down of
fences or the burning of hay, for which I award compensa-
tion out of the rates. From minute inquiries I am con-
vinced that all these offences are committed, often through
mere wantonness, by a very small number of people, and
that there is no sympathy with the offenders amongst the
people. It is true that there is much difficulty in finding
evidence to convict the offender, even in those rare cases
in which evidence is possible, but this arises more from
instinct than from feeling. It is a survival of the bad old
times when the people, not without reason, hated the law

ON THE BENCH 353

as their persistent enemy, as the instrument of suffering
and injustice, and it is pleasant to know that in a new and
happier condition of things this instinct is fading from their
minds. I look forward with confidence to seeing the people
of Clare in the near future eager to assist the police in the
enforcement of the law.

For the last year or two a great wave of temperance has
invaded the County of Clare, and, from what I can learn,
other counties in Ireland have a similar experience. There
are a variety of pledges, each with its appropriate badge —
a cross, a shamrock or some other religious or patriotic
device. Hardly a witness comes on the table before me
that has not one or other of those little metal badges pinned
to the lapel of his coat. I cannot readily distinguish one
form of pledge from another, but to my mind the most
ingenious of them all, and one of the most effective, is what
is known as the " anti-treating " pledge. Irishmen don't
care to drink alone, and when they drink together one man
invariably " stands treat " and pays for the drinks of the
party. The result is fatal to sobriety. A party of ten go
together to a public-house. Each man in turn stands treat,
so that in the end each man is compelled to swallow and
pay for ten drinks when one was all he either required or
desired.

The " anti-treating " pledge is, however, for the pro-
tection of the moderate drinker. It is recognized that tee-
totalism is the only hope for a man who has once become
addicted to drink, and even that security is not always
sufficient.

I had before me a man who had taken part in a drunken
row, but who now appeared in the dock sporting a
temperance badge.

" I am glad," I said, as I let him off lightly, " to see you
have taken the pledge."

" I had it before that, too, your honour," he responded
cheerily.

" Well, this time I hope you have taken it for life."

" Oh, your honour," he expostulated reproachfully,
" sure, I always take it for life."

2 A

354 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Yet another story which I heard on reliable authority
seems to indicate that the Clare converts to temperance
were occasionally disposed to " keep the word of promise
to the lips and break it to the heart."

An habitual drinker was inveigled by a zealous temper-
ance advocate into a modified pledge that he would never
take drink " inside the doors of a public-house." The
alternative was supposed to be drinking at home, a practice
which, it was anticipated, his wife would moderate or
suppress.

The pledge, however, proved wholly illusory. Sympa-
thetic friends carried his drink out to him in the street
before they had their own at the counter, and the last state
of the man was worse than the first. He was persuaded
at length to supplement his original pledge by a codicil
which bound him to drink nothing " inside or outside a
public-house," and for a time it worked like a charm.

A little later some of his old friends met him prowling
disconsolate down the street of his village. " Have a drink,
Pat ? " one of them invited.

" Sure, I have the pledge."

" Don't I know that ? I'll bring it out to you the same
as always."

" It's no use, Mike. I have it on me now not to drink
inside or outside."

" Well, come and look at us, anyway."

The convert consented, and he watched them with
envious eyes put away their liquor at the counter. Then
one of the party, inspired by mistaken benevolence, hit upon
an ingenious idea.

" What's your pledge, Pat ? " he asked in a voice that
trembled with generous eagerness. " Not to drink inside
nor outside a public-house ? "

" That's it."

" Begorra, there's a soft way out of that same. You
stand on the jamb of the door, and you can take your drink
with a clane conscience."

The plan was hailed with acclamation, and the teetotaler
balanced himself on the jamb of the door, which was steep

ON THE BENCH 355

and narrow. To make quite sure, one of the party knelt at
his feet to steady him on his precarious foothold. The
teetotaler trembled as the tempting glass was raised to his
lips.

" Howld hard, Darby," he whispered entreatingly to the
man at his feet, " howld hard, for the love of heaven ; my
sowl's in your hands."

The " Quilty heroes" were, however, more strenuous and
steadfast in their good resolve. It is by this title the inhabi-
tants of a little village on the sea-coast of Clare are known,
and the title has been honourably earned by a display of
heroic courage.

In October, 1907, a tremendous hurricane drove the
French vessel Leon XIII on the rocks close to the village of
Quilty ; there she stuck fast while the huge waves kept
battering her to pieces and her famished and shivering crew
climbed into the rigging. All day they were seen from the
shore appealing for aid ; all night their cries were heard
above the roar of the wind and waves. The little village
was in a state of frantic excitement. Three times the life-
boats put out to the rescue, and three times were compelled
to return in despair.

Then the " Quilty heroes " took the matter in hand. The
coracle, or fishing-boat, of the Clare fishermen is a frail
structure of tarred canvas stretched on a light wooden
frame, too frail, it would seem, to the ignorant to float in a
pond. In these coracles the " Quilty heroes " braved the
huge breakers of the storm-tossed Atlantic and brought the
helpless crew by twos and threes from the wreck to the
shore.

There is a vivid description of the rescue by the captain
of the French vessel, who lay with a broken leg on the wave-
washed deck while the heroic work of rescue was in pro-
gress. " There shall always live in my remembrance/'
Captain Lucas said, " the bravery of those Clare fishermen.
How can I describe its magnificence ? Ah, they are brave !
They put out in their little canoes time after time, and the
waves rolled over them and seemed every moment to
engulf them. At one moment they rode over the white

356 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

crests buoyantly and bravely, another moment they were
plunged down into a great valley of water. Ah ! then we
on the wreck cried, ' All is over/ but on they came again,
nothing daunted. How they came in the teeth of that
treacherous sea was only known to their own intrepid
souls."

Once, indeed, a coracle was capsized, and its crew was
spilt into the boiling sea. A wail went up from their women-
kind lining the shore, but the stout-hearted fishermen
somehow managed to struggle to land, emptied their
coracle and instantly put out again through the storm to
the wreck. The " Quilty heroes," with their coracles,
marched at the head of the great lifeboat procession in
Dublin, and they were decorated by the Government of
France.

The first time I made the personal acquaintance of the
Quilty men in court was on an application for compensa-
tion by an assaulted police-sergeant. To save a life or beat
a policeman was all in the day's work at Quilty.

Later on a great wave of temperance broke with over-
whelming force over the village. The heroes were all
submerged. To a man they took the pledge, and kept it
with religious fidelity. One fisherman only broke down,
and when the backslider was on a fishing expedition with
his mates the news of his lapse leaked out. Forthwith the
unhappy Jonah was heaved overboard to swim ashore.
Next day he took the pledge again and kept it.

Though I have never as much as written a two-line
business letter on the Bench, having to concentrate my
whole attention on evidence that is often conflicting and
almost always confusing, yet my judicial duties, I am glad
to say, have left me spare time for literary work which has
this special advantage, that it can be fitted into the crevices
of other occupations. Of late I have begun to knock pretty
strenuously, though so far unsuccessfully, at the stage door.
I have written several plays, which I am religiously con-
vinced are better than my stories, and I have found one
distinguished and delightful dramatic agent to hold the
same view. But, unhappily, while I can readily get my

ON THE BENCH 357

stories published I cannot get my plays acted. I am fully
aware that actor-managers, by whom my work is so
courteously restored to the author, are overwhelmed by an
ever-flowing tide of MSS. and that their lives are too short
to read even the titles of the numerous plays submitted to
their judgment, so I still flatter my vanity by the assurance
that my plays are unappreciated only because they are
unread.

If literary work has its occasional disappointments, there
are no thorns in the cushion of the Bench. An Irish judge
can flatter himself his life is useful as it is pleasant. He can
do much to restore confidence in the law which has hereto-
fore been lacking amongst the people. The Irish litigant
is a keen fighter, but he is a good loser. All he asks is a
full and fair hearing. I believe I am specially fortunate in
the ability and kindliness of the solicitors and counsel who
practise before me. We are a happy family in Clare, and
our business is lightened by unfailing courtesy and good-
humour. Self-exiled from the exciting arena of politics in
which, for so many years, I played a humble part, I
cannot restrain an occasional glance from outside the
railings at the progress of the game, nor wholly subdue my
interest in the team of which I was once a member.

No form of legislation has done more for the very poorest
class of the rural population than the provisions for
Labourers' Cottages and Old Age Pensions. The old people
of Ireland are wonderfully self-sacrificing. I have already
written that a marriage among the farming class is what
the Americans call a business proposition. The bride
" marries into a farm," which is made over by his parents
to the eldest son. The bride's fortune is divided amongst
the younger sons, and by this means they are often able,
in their turn, to buy themselves a bride with " a bit of land
of her own." At the same time, the old people, surrendering
their rights in the land, are provided for by an elaborate
agreement which secures for them various privileges,
popularly called " liberties," in their abandoned holding.
It is provided, for example, that they are " to have their
support the same as the family, the exclusive enjoyment of

358 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

the west room of the house with the use of the kitchen fire."
" The grass of a cow wet and dry and half an acre of ' mock '
(land made ready for tillage), with manure for the same."
These are the usual liberties. But these liberties are the
subjects of endless litigation, arising, for the most part,
from strained relations between mother-in-law and daughter-
in-law. There is constant war between the west room and
the rest of the cabin when the rival forces meet at the
kitchen fire. In one case there were a succession of equity
processes for the specific performance of a marriage settle-
ment providing the " liberty " of a stone of good potatoes
every week. Each succeeding session a battalion of
witnesses testified to the perfect soundness and to the com-
plete rottenness of those potatoes, and my impartial
predecessor seems to have decided turn about in favour
of one side or the other. When I suggested the simple plan
of allowing and accepting the money value instead of the
potatoes, both parties jumped at the suggestion, and a feud
as bitter as the Montagues and Capulets was ended at a word.
The right to cut three-farthings' worth of rushes on the bank
of a stream has been made in my court the pretext for a
protracted and costly litigation ; for Irish litigants " bravely
find quarrel in a straw where honour is at stake."

But I am wandering from the subject of Old Age Pensions.
In former days when an old farmer, like King Lear, sur-
rendered his kingdom, he was sometimes evilly treated by
ungrateful children. The Old Age Pension — hard cash paid
regularly — makes him the capitalist of the family, for whose
favours there is often the keenest competition.

The provision for building labourers' cottages has
proved equally salutary. The Irish peasant was, as General
Buller once declared, the worst-housed human being in any
quarter of the habitable globe. His home was a mud hovel
of which a respectable pig would be ashamed. Now the
legislation and the local bodies combine to provide him
with a pretty comfortable cottage and an acre of land at the
average rent of one and sixpence a week, less than a sweated
artisan pays for a squalid room in some filthy slum. There
is no part of a County Court judge's duty more pleasant

ON THE BENCH 359

than the administration of this Act. The countryside is
dotted over with those pretty little cottages, often em-
bowered in roses, with a well-fenced acre of well-tilled land
in the rear. Nor is it the labourer alone whose way of living
is improved. The farmer, now, for the most part, owner of
his own land, is ashamed to be worse housed than the
worker on his farm, and so the standard of comfort is raised
all round.

But the change for the better in the condition of the
people has not, so far as I can judge, in the faintest degree
weakened the passionate resolve that inspired the century-
long struggle for the restoration of the Irish Parliament,
destroyed by what Mr. Gladstone described as " the baseness
and blackguardism of the Union." I have lived through
sad and strenuous days, when tenant's right was styled land-
lord's wrong, when the tillers of the soil had no greater fixture
of tenure than trespassing cattle and were evicted with as
little consideration, when the profit or the whim of the
landlord was the law of the land. I have known cases where
a notice to quit was printed on the back of the rent receipt to
keep the tenant in absolute bondage. As a boy in the days
of the Fenian rising I have seen elder schoolfellows carted
away to prison for a generous revolt against an oppression
that was unendurable. Personally, I have played a humble
part in the land agitation and the national agitation of later
years, and of late, from the post of vantage of the hurler on
the ditch, I have watched the progress of the game with
cooler and more deliberate judgment. I find the national
aspirations as keen as ever, but I find a kindlier feeling
pervading all classes of Irishmen.

For myself my hope is that I shall live to administer the
laws of an Irish legislature in which Irishmen of all classes
and creeds will combine to promote the prosperity of their
common country.

INDEX

Abercorn, Duke of, 37

Adams, Judge, 30, 51 et sq., 95, 107,

254 et sq.

Agricultural Society, Royal, 37
Alexander, Dr., Primate of Ireland,

4°

Andrews, Judge, 163
Anne, Queen, 217-18
Armstrong, Mr. Serjeant, 10 et sq.
Asquith, Right Hon. H. H., 192,

230, 242

Balfour, Right Hon. A. J., 153,

204, 212, 22O

and Father Healy, 67

and Coercion campaign, 149,
I5°» I59» J6o, 342

and the Peggy Dillon libel action,
162 et sq.

in debate, 225-6, 237 et sq.

his personal charm, 235

his imperturbability, 293-4
Barlow, Jane, 277-8
Barnes, Mr., 338
Barrett, Wilson, 300-1
Barry, Lord Justice, 131 et sq.
Barton, Mr. Justice, 238
Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli,

Earl of, 62, 170, 270
Benson, F. R., 286
Biggar, M.P., Joseph G., 171, 207
Bismarck, Prince von, 170, 270,

272

Blake, Hon. Mr. Edward, 237
Blaine, Mr., 335
Blunt, Mr. Wilfrid Scawen, 155,

159, 160
Bodkin, Dr. (father of the author),

2 et sq., 13-14
Bodkin, M.P., John, 6 et sq.
Bodkin, K.C., M. M'Donnell, Judge,

Prefatory remarks i, 2

concerning the 12 Tribes of
Gal way, 2, 3

his parentage, 3

early recollections, 13 et sq.

his education, 15 et sq.

Bodkin, K.C., M. M'Donnell, Judge,
on sectarianism, 15 et sq.
and the eviction of the Christian

Brothers, 17 et sq.
his first pamphlet, 23-4
enters for the Bar, 26
on the reporting staff of the

Freeman's Journal, 26 et sq.
attends Protestant Synod, 39, 40
reports inquest and execution,

42 et sq.

on Judge Adams, 52 et sq.
on Father James Healy, 62

et sq.

on Father Tom Burke, 71 et sq.
working for the Bar, 83 et sq.
called to the Bar, 84
the " Four Courts," 85 et sq.
on Frank McDonagh, Q.C., 94

et sq.

on an old " junior," 108 et sq.
on Jsaac Butt, HI et sq.
on Baron Dowse, 117 et sq.
on Lord Morris, 122 et sq.
on Judge Murphy, 126 et sq.
on Lord Justice Barry, 131-2
on Lord Chief Justice Whiteside,

133-4

on Judge Webb, 134-5
on Lord Chancellor Sullivan, 135

et sq.

on Judge Monroe, 137-8
on Lord Justice Holmes, 139
experiences at the Bar, 140 et sq.
on William O'Brien, 147 et sq.
becomes Editor of United Ireland,

147 et sq.

on The Times Commission, 153-4
on Coercion, 154 et sq.
and the Balfour libel action, 162

et sq.

on Parnell, 168 et sq.
disagreement with Parnell, 174
conducts Suppressed United

Ireland, 175 et sq.
contests North Roscommon, 179

et sq.

361

362 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Bodkin, K.C., M. M'Donnell, Judge,
wins the contest, 187
first appearance in the House, 189
on Mr. Gladstone, 190, 196, 205-

6, 209, 213, 224 et sq.
and Mr. Asquith, 192, 230
a stormy debate, 191 et sq.
second introduction of Home

Rule Bill by Mr. Gladstone,

194 et sq.
customs of the House, 198 et sq.,

205 et sq.

ladies in the House, 212 et sq.
his first speech, 216 et sq.
wild scene in the House, 218

et sq.

Home Rule Bill carried, 222-3
some orators, 230 et sq.
portraits from memory, 233

et sq.

general election, 243
retires from Parliament, 243-4
editorial work on Freeman's

Journal, 245 et sq.
on Sir Hugh Lane and Captain

Shaw Taylor, 252 et sq.
his friendship with Mr. J. B.

Dunlop, 258 et sq.
a visit to Mr. Justin McCarthy,

268 et sq.

as a reviewer, 276 et sq.
on a generation of actors, 281

et sq., 291 et sq., 300 et sq.
on some Hamlets, 286 et sq.
an audience with Leo XIII,

309-10
invited to participate in the

World's Press Parliament at

the St. Louis Exposition, 310

et sq.
meets Rear-Admiral Melville,

311 et sq.
at the World's Press Parliament,

317 et sq.

impressions of Niagara, 323 et sq.
a visit to Mr. Burke-Cockran,

331 et sq.

visits Washington, 336 et sq.
impressions of President Roose-
velt, 338 et sq.
on Lord O'Brien of Kilfenora,

342 et sq.
appointed County Court Judge

of Clare, 350 et sq.
Bolton, Mr., 209—10
Booth, Junius Brutus, 286
Boswell, James, 213
Bradlaugh, M.P., Charles, 199

Brayden, W. F., 245, 250

Bright, Right Hon. John, 270

et sq.

Brown and Sons, Messrs., 258
Browning, Robert, 270, 272, 335
Bryce, Mr., 335
Burke, Miss Bedelia, 72 et sq.
Burke, Rev. Joseph, 70
Burke, Miss Norah, 74
Burke, Father Tom, 2, 25, 71 et sq.
Burke, Mr., n
Burke-Cockran, Mr., 331 et sq.,

337-8

Butler, Lord James, 40
Butt, Isaac, 105, in et sq.
Buxton, Right Hon. Sydney C., 232

Campbell, K.C., Mr. James, 2
Campbell-Bannerman, Right Hon.

Sir Henry, 249, 250
Capel, Mgr., 27
Carson, Sir Edward, 342
Carte, D'Oyly, 302
Cavour, Count, 170
Chamberlain, Right Hon. Austen,

221, 235-6
Chamberlain, Right Hon. Joseph,

205, 218 et sq., 225 et sq., 235-6,

269

Chapman and Hall, Messrs., 279
Charles II, 202

Cherry, Lord Chief Justice, 349
Christian Brothers' School, 17 et sq.
Churchill, Lord Randolph, 24, 62,

70
Clanricarde, Marquis of, 150, 156,

342-5

Clarke, Sir Edward, 197
Cobb, M.P., Mr., 233
Cobden, Richard, 270
Coercion Act, 151, 154 et sq.t 171

et sq., 339
Collings, M.P., Right Hon. Jesse^

225

Connaught, King of, 2, 3
Cooper, Fenimore, 14
Coquelin, B. Constant, 293, 298
Corbet, Jem, 250
Corot, 256-7

Corrigan, Sir Dominick, 4 et sq.
Courtown, Lord, 155
Cox, M.P., Mr., 158
Crawford, Mr. Oswald, 279
Crean, M.P., Mr., 221
Cullen, Cardinal, 115
Curran, John Philpot, 69, 98
Curzon, Lord, 231

INDEX

363

Daily Globe Democrat (St. Louis),

318-19

Daily News, 241
Daily Telegraph, 279
D'Arcy, Miss, 12
Davitt, Michael, 155, 238, 340
Delaney, Father William, S.J., 20

et sq.

Devonshire, Duke of, 216
Dickens, Charles, 26, 246, 270
Dillon, M.P., John, 2, 95, 171, 173,

237, 242, 331
Dillon, Peggy, 162 et sq.
Donnelly, Mr., 151, 153
Doo Castle, 6 et sq.
Down Recorder, 246
Dowse, Baron, 99, 117 et sq.
Doyle, A. Conan, 278
Dublin, 47, 49, 83, 95, 117, 135,

156, 161, 167, 172, 174, 188, 240,

252, 257, 281
Du Cros, Alfred, 262-3
Du Cros, Arthur, 262-3
Du Cros, Harvey, 262-3
Dudley, Lord, 306
Duggan, Bp., 4-5, 26, 161
Dunlop, J. B., 258 et sq.
Dunlop, Mrs. J. B., 265-6

Edward VII, 61, 247 et sq.

Eliot, George, 270

Ellis, M.P., Mr. Tom, 234-5

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 241, 270

Emmet, Dr., 339

Erskine, Thomas, Lord, 230

Faucit, Helen, 284

Finlay, Fr. Tom, 22-3

Fisher, M.P., Mr., 220

Fitzgerald, Judge, 95

Fitzgibbon, Lord Justice, 40, 70,

87

Fitzpatrick, Mr., 72
Forbes- Robertson, Sir Johnston,

286 et sq.

Forster, M.P., Mr. Harry, 239
Four Courts, Dublin, The, 85 et sq.,

124, 133

Eraser, Mr., 108 et sq.
Freeman's Journal, 26 et sq., 48,

147 et sq., 152, 164, 169, 170,

177 et sq., 245 et sq., 268, 276,

342 et sq.
Fry's Magazine, 240

Gallagher, John B., 30 et sq., 40-1

Galway, 2 et sq., 65, 72 et sq., 100,
103, 141, 160, 169 et sq., 243, 255

Gardiner, Mrs. Jack, 332, 334-5

Garfield, President, 328

George V, 256, 297

George, Right Hon. Lloyd, 232

Gibbs, M.P., Mr. Vicary, 220, 239

Gilbert, William, 301 et sq.

Gill, M.P., T. P., 158 et sq.

Gladstone, Herbert, Lord, 213,
229

Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., i,

62, 170, 209, 233, 270, 335
Isaac Butt compared to, 112
and Home Rule, 168, 194, 196,

204, 218, 242, 248-9, 359
and the Parnell split, 172, 191
Judge Bodkin's first impression

of, 190
his marvellous powers of oratory,

196, 206
and the scrimmage in the House,

221

Home Rule Bill carried, 222
Judge Bodkin on, 224 et sq.
Morley's Life of, 339

Gladstone, Mrs. W. E., 213

Glancey, Mr. John, 174

Glynn, Prior, 309-10

Goldsmith, Oliver, 217

Gregory, Lady, 340

Grossmith, George, 33, 282-3, 300
et sq.

Guinee, Mr., 30

Gunn, Mr., 302

Hamilton, Captain, 155
Hanbury, Right Hon. R. W., 204
Harcourt, Sir William, Bart., 225,

229, 239

Hare, Sir John, 297 et sq.
Harper's Magazine, 272
Harris, Mathew, 171
Hartington, Lord. See Devonshire,

Duke of

Harvey, Martin, 286, 290, 304-5
Haughton, Prof., 22, 41
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 241
Hay, Hon. John, 317 et sq.
Hayes, President, 328
Healy, Father James, 62 et sq., 75
Healy, Timothy M., 157, 160-1,

171-2, 175 et sq., 205-6, 216,

230, 238-9

Hewlett, Maurice, 276
Hoban, John, 338
Holmes, Lord Justice, 139

364 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 203, 241,

270, 278
Home Rule, Irish, 83, in, 113, 122,

147, 168, 191 et sq., 229, 231-2,

240 et sq., 249 et sq., 270, 275,

339 et sq.
Hooper, Mr. John, Mayor of Cork,

151

Houghton, Lord, 37
Hume, Bill, 262-3

Ino Herado, 320
Insuppressible, 175 et sq.
Irish Catholic, 175
Irving, Sir Henry, 283 et sq., 289,
300-8

Jackson, Q.C., Mr., 137-8

James of Hereford, Lord, in,

231

efferson, Joseph, 298-9
'm ohns, Mr., 321
ohnson, Dr., 22

ohnson, M.P., Mr. William, 208-9,
239
Jordan, Mr. J., 172

Kaye, Sir William, 165
Keogh, Judge, 65, 87, 347
Killanin, Lord, 122
King, Tom, 286
Kubelik, 305-6

Labouchere, M.P., Henry, 209-10,

231, 234 et sq.
Land League, 47, 95
Lane, Sir Hugh, 252 et sq.
Law, Hugh, Lord Chancellor of

Ireland, 95

Lawless, Hon. Emily, 340
Leamy, M.P., Mr., 156, 174
Lecky, Right Hon. W. E. H., 340
Lefroy, Mr., 30
Leo XIII, 2, 309-10, 340
Lever, Charles, 112, 164
Limerick, 51 et sq.
Lincoln, Abraham, 170
Lipton, Sir Thomas, 249
Little Folks, 328
Logan, M.P., Mr., 320
Longfellow, H. W., 241, 271
Lowe, Rev. Brother, 19, 20
Lowell, James Russell, 241, 270

Macaulay, Lord, 25, 303
McCabe, Cardinal, 63-4
McCarthy, Miss, 269
McCarthy, M.P., Justin, 2, 173, 236,

240 et sq., 268 et sq., 279, 338, 340
McCarthy, Justin Huntly, 275
MacDermot, Q.c., The, 343 et sq.
McDonagh, Q.C., Frank, 91-2, 94

et sq.

McDonnell, M.p.,Joe, 6, 8 et sq.
McHale, Archbishop, 17, 103
MacNeill, M.P., Mr. Swift, 236
McTiernan, Captain, 183-4
McWeeney, Theophilus, 32-3
Majoribanks, M.P., Mr., 234-5
Manning, Cardinal, 75
Markham, Mr., 347 et sq.
Marlborough, Seventh Duke of, 24
Massy, General, 60
May, O., 36 et sq.
Meehan, Father, 66
Meldon, Mr., 6

Melville, Rear- Admiral, 311 et sq.
Midleton, Lord, 237
Mill, John Stuart, 270 et sq.
Millar, M.P., Mr., 237
Molloy, Rev. Mgr., 22
Monroe, Judge, 137
Moore, Thomas, 69, 171, 208
Morley, Viscount, 172, 213, 225-6,

231, 243, 271, 339
Morris, Lord, 100, 122 et sq.
Mountjoy, Lord, 7, 85, 148
Moylan, Rev. Brother, 20
Mulligan, Peter, 135
Murphy, Judge, 99, 126 et sq.
Murphy, Mr. William, 175-6

Napoleon, 274

National League, 151, 160 et sq.
National and Liberal Club, 51
National Press, 177-8
Newman, Cardinal, 25
Niagara Falls, 323 et sq.
Nicholls, Mr. Harry, 306
Nobokoff, Lio, 320
Norberry, Lord, 98
Nordenadler, Mme. Ebba, 280
North American Review, 335
North Roscommon, electioneering
at, 179 et sq.

O'Brien of Kilfenora, Lord, 156,

343 et sq.
O'Brien, Peter, Lord Chief Justice

of Ireland, 95^

INDEX

365

O'Brien, M.P., William, 2, 147 et sq.,
160 et sq., 170 et sq., 237

O'Connell, M.P., Daniel, 69, 98,
103, no— n, 168

O'Connor, Mr. H., 176

O'Connor, M.P., T. P., 2, 219

O'Dwyer, Mr., 175

O'Kelly, James, 180, 186-7

Old Age Pensions, 357 et sq.

O'Mahony, Mr. Pierce, 174

O'Maley, Mr. Charles, 120, 126
et sq.

O'Malley, Charles, 256

O'Meara, Mr. Thomas, 140, 145

O'Meehan, Mr. E. J., 347

O'Shea, Captain, 171, 172 et sq.

Osman Pasha, 46-7

Pallas, Chief Baron, 124, 343
Parker, Chief Justice, 315
Parnell, Charles Stuart, 2, in, 246,

34°

supported by the Freeman's

Journal, 32

a journalistic hoax, 47 et sq.
charged with conspiracy, 95
and the founding of United

Ireland, 147
and the Times Commission,

I53~4> 230

his power in Ireland, 168, 170
his first speech, 169
his oratory, 169 et sq.
the O'Shea case, 171 et sq., 293
the opposition of United Ireland,

172 et sq.
Miss McCarthy's sketch of, 275

Peel, Arthur Wellesley, Viscount
(Speaker of the House of Com-
mons), 193, 197 et sq., 206, 208
et sq., 215 et sq., 222, 236, 239

Petre, Lord, 23

Phoenix Park, 153

Pigott, Richard, 154

Pius IX, 10

Plunkett, Archbishop, 17, 40

Post Dispatch, 321

Punch, 303

Quilty, 355-6

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 166
Reid, Mayne, 14
Ridley, Mr., 233 et sq.
Rigby, Mr., 46

Roosevelt, Theodore, 2, 315, 339
et sq.

Rosebery, Lord, 242, 249, 250

Rousbey, Mr., 307

Russell of Killowen, Lord, 24, in,

230-1

Russell, Lord John, 270, 273-4
Russell, Lady John, 273
Russo-Japanese War, 312 et sq.

St. Louis Universal Exposition,

310 et sq.
Salisbury, James, 4th Marquis of,

201

Salisbury, Robert Cecil, 3rd Mar-
quis of, 62, 172
Salvini, Tomasso, 288, 298
Saunderson, M.P., Colonel, 221
Savage Club, 283
Scott, Sir Walter, 303
Selborne, Lord, 237
Seymore, Rev., 15 et sq.
Sexton, M.P., Mr. Thomas, 95, 225,

236-7, 241-2, 249, 268
Shakespeare, 282, 289 et sq., 305
Shaw, G. B., 290
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 282
Sherman, General, 332
Silberrad, Una, 276-7
Sligo, 156

Smith, Rev. Sydney, 65
Sothern, Edward Askew, 281—2
Speaker of the House of Commons.

See Peel

Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 303
Sullivan, Serjeant A. M., 347 et sq.,

349
Sullivan, Barry, 283-4, 286> 289»

308

Sullivan, Lord Chancellor, 135 et sq.
Sullivan, T. D., Lord Mayor of

Dublin, 151, 172
Swift, Dean, 69
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 270

Tanner, M.P., Dr., 121, 193, 199
Taylor, Captain Shaw, 252 et sq.
Taylor, M.P., Colonel, 169
Tennyson, Lord, 270, 272, 305
Terris, William, 306
Thackeray, W. M., 270
Times, The, 153-4, 168
Times Commission, 153, 168
Todd, Burns and Co., 258-9
Tree, Sir H. Beerbohm, 286, 289,

292 et sq., 298, 300-1
Tree, Lady, 293
Trevelyan, Sir George, 236

366 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH JUDGE

Trinity College, Dublin, 25, 167,

284

Ttiam, 8, 13 et sq., 243
Tullabeg College, 26 et sq.
Tully, Mr. Jasper, 343

United Ireland, 147 et sq., 165, 171
et sq., 278

Vane, Sir Harry, 218
Victoria, Queen, 217-18, 328

Walker, Samuel, Lord Chancellor

of Ireland, 95
Wallace, Sir William, 262
Waller, Lewis, 295 et sq.
Walsh, Fr. Charles, 23

Warren, Judge, 97

Washington, S. C., 336 et sq.

Webb, Captain, 326

Webb, Judge, 134-5

Wellington, Duke of, 274

Wells, H. G., 313

Wexford, 155

Whiteside, Lord Chief Justice,

133-4

Wicklow, 169
Wilde, Oscar, 311
Wilkins, Miss Mary, 323
Wodehouse, Lord, 35-6
Woodlock, Mgr., 30
Wordsworth, William, 211
World's Press Parliament, 310,

317 et sq.
Wyndham, Sir Charles, 296

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